Skeleton Creek by Patrick Carman

[description from Amazon]

Strange things are happening in Skeleton Creek . . . and Ryan and Sarah are trying to get to the heart of it. But after an eerie accident leaves Ryan housebound and forbidden to see Sarah, their investigation takes two tracks: Ryan records everything in his journal, while Sarah uses her videocam to search things out. . .and then email the clips for Ryan to see.

In a new, groundbreaking format, the story is broken into two parts -- Ryan's text in the book, and Sarah's videos on a special website, with links and passwords given throughout the book.

Review:

When I first started this book, I didn't know how well the whole "read a chapter, then watch a video" thing would work. But even though I got annoyed with having to put down the book, turn on my computer, and then watch a video before I could start reading the next chapter, I thought the whole novel + video thing worked well.

The actual writing part of the book was much better than the videos though. It was interesting to see things told from the afraid person's perspective, instead of having it be told by the fearless one. Hearing about his theories and worries really helped make the book as suspenseful as it is. He isn't much of a developed character (though he is believable because of his worries), but I think that this book is more of a plot driven book anyway. The book is supposed to encourage the reluctant readers to read, which I think it will do because of the plot and videos. Even though I thought the videos were kind of unbelievable.

I thought the girl who played Sarah was a very unrealistic vlogger. Maybe I'm biased because I watch a bunch of vloggers on youtube- John and Hank, fiveawesomegirls, Tyler Oakley among others- and are used to real people just talking without a script (or at least seeming like they didn't have a script) But when Sarah wasn't vlogging, I really enjoyed the videos and thought they added a lot to the story. Mostly they just added suspense, especially at the end because of the GIANT CLIFFHANGER OF DOOM! Seriously. Big cliffhanger. I want the next book ASAP.

8/10