Even If We Break by Marieke Nijkamp

FIVE friends go to a cabin.
FOUR of them are hiding secrets.
THREE years of history bind them.
TWO are doomed from the start.
ONE person wants to end this.
NO ONE IS SAFE.
For five friends, this was supposed to be one last getaway before going their separate ways--a chance to say goodbye to each other, and to the game they've been playing for the past three years. But they're all dealing with their own demons, and they're all hiding secrets.
Finn doesn't trust anyone since he was attacked a few months ago. Popular girl Liva saw it happen and did nothing to stop it. Maddy was in an accident that destroyed her sports career. Carter is drowning under the weight of his family's expectations. Ever wants to keep the game going for as long as they can, at all costs.
When the lines between game and reality start to blend with deadly consequences, it's a race against time before it's game over--forever.
Are you ready to play?

Author Marieke Nijkamp

Three things I love - Role Playing Games, Good Books, and Minority Representation. 
Three things I got in huge amounts from 'Even if we Break'!
A group of five old friends head to a house in the woods - five friends who, over the years, have grown apart and increasingly resentful of each other. This is a last hurrah - a chance to return to their younger days and to spend what is likely a last weekend together before they move on to very seperate lives. 
Until they start dying...
To say that this is a tense read would be a collosal understatement - I was on the edge of my seat throughout, and finished the book in an evening. There is a truthfulness to the book that feels quite unsettling - the main monsters here are human emotions, rather than the supernatural. 
Special credit should be given to how diverse the cast of characters are - the characters are naturally diverse and don't feel forced - and it's a refreshing change from the bunch of white, cisgendered, able bodied straight folks you normally get as the cast in YA Thrillers. What's especially important is that the author utilises characters who just happen to identify as non-binary, or are disabled etc.- they are by far not defined by that characteristic, and are written as real, complex people. 
Fascinating, thrilling, and thought-provoking - 'Even if We Break' is my thriller of the fall!

​Many thanks to MidasPR for the copy