Solitary by Travis Thrasher

When Chris Buckley moves to Solitary, North Carolina, he faces the reality of his parents’ divorce, a school full of nameless faces—and Jocelyn Evans. Jocelyn is beautiful and mysterious enough to leave Chris speechless. But the more Jocelyn resists him, the more the two are drawn together.

Chris soon learns that Jocelyn has secrets as deep as the town itself. Secrets more terrifying than the bullies he faces in the locker room or his mother’s unexplained nightmares. He slowly begins to understand the horrific answers. The question is whether he can save Jocelyn in time.

This first book in the Solitary Tales series will take you from the cold halls of high school to the dark rooms of an abandoned cabin—and remind you what it means to believe in what you cannot see.




This book was a bit different than many of the young adult ones out there. Sometimes this was for the better, while other times, it wasn’t quite so lucky.


The best part of the novel is the tension that flows throughout the pages. There is a real sense of pacing that keeps the reader turning the pages. There are also many truly frightening moments, which are not as easy to write as people think. Many times I found myself looking around my room as I read at night, wondering if I really was alone. That, to me, is a very positive reaction to a scary story. The weak points relate mainly to characterization. The protagonists, Chris and Jocelyn, are rather dull. There is no real meat to their personalities, which makes following them through their struggles, a bit of…well…a struggle. They are cookie-cutter versions of real people and I do wish they had been written with a bit more care. However, the plot is interesting, and it’s not hard to recommend, especially to those of you that are like me and love a good scare.

I will be picking up the next two books in the series to see how all of this turns out.