It Looks Like Us
by Alison AmesPublished by: Page Street Kids on September 27, 2022
Genres: Young Adult, Horror, Mystery
Pages: 288
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
Rating:
The remote terror of THE THING meets the body horror of WILDER GIRLS in this fast-paced Antarctic thriller.
Shy high school junior Riley Kowalski is spending her winter break on a research trip to Antarctica, sponsored by one of the world’s biggest tech companies. She joins five student volunteers, a company-approved chaperone, and an impartial scientist to prove that environmental plastic pollution has reached all the way to Antarctica, but what they find is something much worse… something that looks human.
Riley has anxiety--ostracized by the kids at school because of panic attacks--so when she starts to feel like something’s wrong with their expedition leader, Greta, she writes it off. But when Greta snaps and tries to kill Riley, she can’t chalk it up to an overactive imagination anymore. Worse, after watching Greta disintegrate, only to find another student with the same affliction, she realizes they haven’t been infected, they’ve been infiltrated--by something that can change its shape. And if the group isn’t careful, that something could quickly replace any of them.
Content Tags:
Perfect for readers who want:
- Atmospheric horror set in unique places.
- Books that will creep you out and make you read with the lights on.
- Body horror and unexplainable monsters.
- That creeping sense that something’s not quite right.
- Twisty plots that keep you guessing what’s really going on.
Many thanks to Page Street Kids and TBR and Beyond Tours for an eARC in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
It’s fall, and you know what that means? I am officially jumping on the creepy book bandwagon. And what could be creepier than some unknown creature in the unexplored icescape of Antarctica? Well . . . very little, honestly. So I immediately knew I had to read this book. Plus, how many books are set in Antarctica?! Pretty cool.
It Looks Like Us is a chilling, spine-tingling horror set in the Antarctic. The frozen continent keeps its secrets . . . maybe a little too well. Filled with twists and turns and body horror, this one kept me on the edge of my seat.
This is a pretty short book and a really fast read, especially as things start going wrong and you get into the meat of the mystery (which, honestly, doesn’t take that long). Ames doesn’t beat around the bush or waste the reader’s time. We’re thrown right into the thick of things, with an unsettling atmosphere where things just feel off. Though there are elements of the plot that are fairly predictable, and the characters aren’t especially deep, what Ames manages to capture is all the fun and thrill of staying up late and watching a “monster in the [insert setting here]” horror movie, where you’re not particularly concerned for the characters anyway; you just want some good, ol’ creepy monster action going on.
In Ames’ newest release, this group of kids sent to Antarctica don’t really know why they’re there. All they know is they’re not alone.
And I don’t mean the few other research bunkers scattered across the continent, either. Ames invokes the classic “monster” trope in a new setting: the vast frozen tundra of Antarctica. What makes this work so well is the not knowing—both of what the creature is, nor what it could possibly be.
Lake Vostok is mentioned multiple times as a possible source of their problem. It’s a giant subglacial lake under Antarctica with its own unique ecosystem that, of course, scientists aren’t sure about. So sure, why not blame the giant, scary, unknown thing on the giant, scary, unknown subglacial lake? Makes sense to me!
I really enjoyed the way Ames plays with fear of the unknown to create a tense atmosphere that had me flipping quickly through pages to find the answers.
She loses her breath in a gasp when those two black dots appear again. “It can see us.”
“Yes,” Ilse whispers.
“What is it?”
“We’re sure there’s no bears?” Nelson asks, his voice hushed. “Leopards, maybe? Really big, erm, seals?”
“It’s a trick of the light,” Dae says. “On the snow.”
“It has eyes,” Riley says, and the end of the sentence is dangerously close to a sob.
The main character, Riley, suffers from severe anxiety and panic attacks, and she sees this as a fresh start with new people (potentially future friends?). But she’s not the only member of the team with a secret.
There’s a bit of mental health rep here with Riley, who was ostracized in her own life due to a massive panic attack in school that freaked out her friends and classmates. This expedition is meant to be a fresh start for her. Except . . . you know . . . giant monsters aren’t known to be great for people with severe anxiety? Riley has to rely a lot on coping mechanisms, as well as the help of her companions, to keep her anxiety from taking over.
Riley isn’t the only member of the group that consider this expedition as a fresh start, though. Everyone else on the team has their own secrets . . . and their own motives. Not all of them pure, exactly. While I don’t feel like I got to know any of these characters particularly well over the course of the book, that suited me just fine. I mean, we were in Riley’s head, and Riley doesn’t know them particularly well, either. That’s part of what makes the setting so creepy: being stuck in a confined place with strangers! Especially if you’re an introvert.
It Looks Like Us has a very spooky atmosphere of something lurking around the corner, something not quite right. But it also has a lot of body horror, so I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone with a weak stomach.
I mean, if you want the bejeebus scared out of you in a way that makes you keep all the lights on at night, yes, absolutely, Ames manages to capture that really well. Unfortunately for me, I read this entirely at night (well, and early morning, when it was still dark), which is not a great time to read something where the characters are literally being hunted and stalked by a horrific unknown creature if you’re a big scaredy cat like I am.
The monster in this book is described in great detail, and guys . . . it ain’t pretty. Ames definitely earns the “body horror” part of the description on this one. I’m not a huge fan of body horror myself, but that being said, this didn’t bother me too badly. Plus, the few particularly graphic sections are easy enough to skim past without really missing too much. Trust me, this monster is creepy enough even without reading the descriptions of its disturbing appearance!
About Alison Ames
Alison Ames is a writer based in Colorado. Her debut novel To Break A Covenant will be published in fall 2021.
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This sounds like my kind of book, body horror and all😁 You definitely picked the right season to read it!
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It was good timing for the release on their part. 😀 It’s the perfect atmosphere for it! I think you’d really like this one.
I don’t read horror, but this sound good.
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