Ten by Gretchen McNeil is a young adult thriller/mystery novel. The story follows teenager Meg and her best friend Minnie as they navigate a weekend full of horrors they’d never have imagined.
Meg and Minnie were invited to a party on a remote island by the school’s It Girl, Jessica. When the two arrive off the ferry, Meg is greeted by the last person she wanted to see that weekend; T.J.. T.J. is the boy that Minnie had been in love with for years… but he’s also the boy who is in love with Meg. Earlier that year, Meg had rejected T.J.’s invitation to the Homecoming dance for Minnie- even though she doesn’t know about it.
Once the girls arrived at the party house they were met by five people they didn’t really know- and Minnie’s ex, Gunner, but something else was missing. Jessica and the cheerleading team.
T.J. informs Meg that due to the storm raging outside, the cheerleaders couldn’t make it onto a ferry after their meet that night. This raises Meg’s nerves, but she kind of just brushes it off. Jessica and the girls would be arriving in the morning; it was nothing to worry about, right?
Wrong. Just as the ten teenagers are sitting down for dinner, Ben, a blonde boy from the rival school, who Minnie had quickly become infatuated with, begun to choke. Meg took action immediately, realizing he was having an allergic reaction to something. She pulled his epipen from his pocket and saved his life- but they had bigger problems.
Someone had put nuts in the salad- the salad that Meg had made herself and T.J. carried to the table. Those who don’t know Meg begin to accuse her of adding the nuts while T.J. and Ben defend her. But if it wasn’t T.J. or Meg who added the nuts… who did?
The night continues on and things get scary really, really fast. As bodies begin to drop and the storm outside refuses to let up, the teens are pit against each other and Minnie’s lost her anti-anxiety medication, turning her into a hostile, unpredictable ball of nerves with a questionable anger towards Meg.
When the storm finally lets up and the weekend has ended, there are only two survivors on the island waiting for the rescue helicopter. The story ends pretty abruptly, just stating the two survivors had made it home. The novel would have been a lot better if it had gone into more detail about what their lives were like after the tragedies of that weekend.
The novel was really engaging the entire way through, keeping readers on the edge of their seat at each turn of the page. You never knew when they would discover something new, when someone would die, or who would turn against who. It’s a thriller all the way through and shows the meaning of having trust in those you care for, not trusting everything you see- even if there’s evidence, and definitely tells you not to always trust a paper invitation from a girl who doesn’t even like you.