Title: Creed
Author: Trisha Leaver and Lindsay Currie
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller, Mystery
Age Group: Young Adult
Rating: 2 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Three went in. Three came out. None even a shadow of who they once were.
When their car breaks down, Dee, her boyfriend Luke, and his brother Mike walk through a winter storm to take refuge in a nearby town called Purity Springs. When they arrive, the emergency sirens are blaring and the small farming town seems abandoned. With no other shelter, they spend the night in an empty house.
But they soon discover that not everything in Purity Springs is as it seems. When the town’s inhabitants suddenly appear the next morning, Dee, Luke, and Mike find themselves at the mercy of the charismatic leader, Elijah Hawkins, who plans to make Dee his new wife. Elijah’s son, Joseph, offers to help them escape . . . but the price of his help may be more than Dee and her friends can bear.
When I read the synopsis for Creed, I thought the book would be reminiscent of Silent Hill – a creepy town, mist crawling through the streets, and something wicked lingering deep inside the abandoned town. Unfortunately, Purity Springs, the town in question, is not tormented by anything supernatural as I hoped at first, but instead by regular, albeit slightly crazy, people. The town is overrun by a cult, led by charismatic leader Elijah Hawkins.
The book starts out promising with Dee, her boyfriend Luke, and his brother Mike on their way to a concert, traveling through the middle of nowhere when their car breaks down. They walk to the nearest village to get some gas and maybe some help, but the town is seemingly abandoned. With night setting in, they find cover in one of the abandoned homes – which is an exact replica of every house in the street, even inside. In a drawer, they find a strange book that puts them all on edge, but it isn’t until morning that they they find out what messed up situation they ended up in.
Connecting with the characters proved almost impossible. Even Dee, our main character, seems to have a chaotic personality that jumps from one conclusion to the next. The plot is so over the top it’s ridiculous. Dee is incapable of acting on her own, of fighting off any evil without being saved by someone else. She has no backbone, and is all too willing to comply even to things that sound insane. She goes on and on about why Luke is amazing, but we never get any reason why Dee would be amazing, or even interesting.
The ending is implausible as well, and leaves too many open questions. It almost sounds like the author wanted to make room for a sequel – I hope that’s not the case though. The material is already paper-thin, and I doubt that’ll get any better if the plot is stretched even thinner.
This book has great potential, but overall, fails to deliver.
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