This book is completely different tonally than what I was expecting from the cover. This looks kinda like a horror/thriller, but really it's a straight contemporary in tone. Lord of the Fly Fest is a retelling of Lord of the Flies, shifted to be a YA comedy. Our protagonist Rafi runs a true crime podcast and decides to attend the next big music festival, Fly Fest, to try and interview popstar River Stone. River's girlfriend went missing and Rafi is convinced he killed her, though her conviction looks more like she has a crush on him at times.
As mentioned, this book is pretty much a straight comedy. One of the main model characters is called Hella Badid, the name that made me realise I wasn't getting the horror I wanted. It's also way more like Lord of the Flies than I expected, with characters and some (loose) plot elements being lifted from it. This may sound odd and if it does, that's because it is. The end third of the book tries to ramp up the serious plot developments with increased comical farce, and the result is very hard to get what the author was going for.
Once I got over my disappointment about the lack of horror, this book was fine I guess. It feels a little dated already, making fun of influencers and popstars in a way which feels very 2016. Characters are often clear parodies of real people (Hella Badid, James Charles -> Jack, Harry Styles -> River Stone) and it all feels a bit mean. The main character is mocked mercilessly for running a podcast, even though podcasts are mega popular and tons of influencers either have their own or frequently guest on them.
I will say, I really enjoyed the audiobook. I think the narrator does some fun voices for the characters, and it was a lot more palatable to hear the humour than it would have been to just read it on the page. If you do decide to pick this up, the audiobook might be the way to go.
Ultimately, this book was a fun time but it's a big step down in my opinion from Moldavsky's other work. I also think it needs clearer marketing to avoid disappointed readers
Overall Rating:
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