Sabrina Sebastian dreams of being an investigative reporter. Right now she's a reporter for her school's paper, The Mount Clare High School Weekly, but she has her eyes set on a internship at the Daily Sun. A real reporting job! She wants to write an exciting story that will get her noticed. She decides to look into rumors surrounding a horror website, Scream Site. The site is sponsoring a contest to award a big prize to the maker of the video with the most likes and shares at the end of the year. But, rumors are circulating that girls who have posted popular videos to the site are disappearing. Sabrina starts researching the site and the rumors and discovers the stories might just be true. The whole thing might just revolve around the sponsors of Scream Site, a closed amusement park and a Scream Site user, Shady99. When she starts looking deeper into the disappearances, she starts receiving threats. Her perfect news story might just be a bit more dangerous than she thought!

The premise for this story makes for a great YA horror story. Horror video site gone horribly wrong. And for the first 2/3 of the book, I was completely engrossed in the plot. But....the ending fell flat for me. I felt the ending was rushed and a bit too convenient....a "safe'' ending? While it is important to remember the audience a book is written for, I think the end for this one was a bit too childish.....like an old Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys ending. Too soft. I was waiting for a horrific finish......and I didn't get it.

But, I enjoyed the story up to that point. My son, who is a YouTube fanatic, would like this book. I think he would have the same comments about the ending that I did though.

I liked this book enough to read more by this author. The story was engaging and interesting. My only problem with it was the ending. I wanted more of a Scream from Scream Site. Justina Ireland has written several other YA books including Dread Nation and Vengeance Bound. Dread Nation sound so interesting! A zombie story set back in the Civil War era....definitely added to my TBR list!

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from Capstone via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.** ( )

Fourteen-year-old Sabrina is a high school freshman and an aspiring journalist. When a local paper offers a summer internship, she is determined to apply but she needs something a little more substantial than her usual high school fluff pieces. When her best friend tells her about a popular website called Scream Site on which people can upload their own homemade horror videos, she knows she's found her story especially after hearing rumours about some of the girls who were seen in these videos disappearing in real life.

After reading the publisher's blurb about Scream Site by author Justina Ireland, I thought it sounded interesting. I suspected that, as it was aimed at a young YA audience, there would be little gore but, hopefully, lots of suspense - the first was true but the second not so much. Not to say there was nothing going on here. The story is fairly creepy, enough to keep me reading although it also helped that it was a short easy read. But whenever it looked like it was heading towards even a little excitement, it seemed to back off - the possibility of something untoward happening was repeated, often several times, as if somehow repetition of possibility of frights or action could stand in for actual frights or action (hint - it doesn't). And the ending - well, let's just say it was a tad implausible even for a genre that thrives on implausibility. Still, I would imagine this lack of blood and frights makes it a safe read for a young audience so, although I would suggest anyone over the age of 13 might want to give it a pass, it might be a good summer read for pre-teens 10 -12.

2.5

Thanks to Netgalley and Capstone for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review ( )