Only a creature of otherworldly terror would leave candy bar wrappers in the sink.

26. The Return – Rachel Harrison

Elise, Elise, Elise…being the one in your friend group who has it the least together is not a fatal flaw that means you have to give in to the monsters. It just doesn’t. Be they metaphorical or literal, you don’t have to give in to the monsters to be a good friend or to be a good person. Plus it seems like your other two friends do not have a specific place for you, like you have to be the fuck up in the friend group. You could be whoever and still be friends with them. And why, yes, I do know the main character can’t hear me, but, there are a lot of friend groups where women think they have to be “the [insert thing] one” and stay in that role – see Baroness Von Sketch Show. That’s just not true and while Elise is definitely in a rut she put herself in, she doesn’t have to surrender to anything.

The great thing about The Return is that it has an actually good friend dynamic, including the toxic one that no one is admitting is toxic because she disappeared for two years. She came back, but she did disappear and came back way more of an actual toxic friend on a group reunion trip where everyone has to freak out about her new changes to each other and not ask about them, whether or not they like the hotel, whether or not they are having fun, and all the other terrible parts of group trips like worrying constantly out about whether or not you’re living up to your friends’ expectations/how much things cost at boutique hotels.

At first I was worried this wasn’t a horror novel, it seemed too familiar and just like a thriller where the secret would be that Elise actually slept with Julie’s husband and oh the horror of the banal emotional betrayal that is terrifying in real life, but more ho-hum on the page in a domestic sort of thriller. That is not how it turned out. Thankfully.

In their bonded pair, Merricat was the sassy one and Peregrine was the opinionated one.