Hop wakes up in an ancient labyrinth with no memory of his life, trapped alongside a girl he doesn't recognize and haunted by a shadowy figure that won't leave him alone. The only way out is through the Bone Door, hidden behind a series of impossible trials scattered across strange, shifting realms. But as Hop digs deeper into the maze's secrets, he realizes his own past may be tangled up in its horrors, and uncovering the truth is the only way anyone escapes.
My Review
Thank you so much to Harlequin Audio and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the copy!
This book throws you straight into a labyrinth with no map, no memory, and no idea who to trust, and for the first hundred pages or so, that disorientation works entirely in the book’s favor.
Hop wakes up trapped with a handful of other kids, all of them missing pieces of themselves, all of them being hunted by something that knows exactly which buttons to push. That’s the real trick of this book: the labyrinth isn’t just a maze, it’s a mirror. Every room reflects back whatever these kids are most afraid of, whether that’s abandonment, vulnerability, or love itself. It’s a smart, unsettling premise, and White commits to the horror of it fully. There are expletives, there’s genuine dread, and the plot twists back on itself in ways that kept me guessing.
Here’s my hang up though: this is marketed as adult horror, but everything about it, the character voices, the emotional arcs, the found family warmth underneath all that darkness, reads as YA. And because the cast is made up of children (even if I get why that choice matters thematically), I never fully closed the emotional distance with any of them. I wanted to feel gutted by their fears. Instead I mostly admired the mechanics of the story from a slight remove.
That said, the ending pulls everything together in a way that actually earns its bigger themes: choosing light over darkness, breaking cycles instead of repeating them. The found family thread is tender, and listening to the audiobook made that bond land even more.