No Exit by Taylor Adams
A kidnapped little girl locked in a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do?
On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.
Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.
Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?
There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?
Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.
But who can she trust?
With exquisitely controlled pacing, Taylor Adams diabolically ratchets up the tension with every page. Full of terrifying twists and hairpin turns, No Exit will have you on the edge of your seat and leave you breathless.
Amazon Synopsis
Spooky Rating
4/5
Overall Rating
4/5
Quick Take
No Exit is a one-of-a-kind thriller/horror epic that takes the reader by surprise at every turn. It is infuriating, scary, methodical, and impossible to put down. Pick this one up, and don’t set it down until you’ve finished. It is a horror masterpiece that is designed to devour you whole.
Tell Me More
I want to start off my review by noting that I run a horror book club, and this was our first book pick. Originally, we were supposed to read the book over the course of four weeks; however, No Exit consumed us all and we finished the book in less than a week. It is the first book to have such a strong hold on me in quite some time, and I cannot praise it enough.
Darby preferred to live her life wide-eyed, tormented, running, because nothing can catch you if you never stop.
No Exit by Taylor Adams
No Exit follows Darby, a young woman who is on a road trip to visit the hospital where her mother has just been admitted. Unfortunately, Darby is driving through a blizzard and ends up getting stranded at a visitor’s center with a few other people because the storm is too dangerous to drive in. When Darby is outside trying to get a phone signal, she comes across a young girl who is being held captive in the back of one of the cars in the parking lot. The story then speeds up and follows Darby as she tries to free the young girl and discover which of the cast of characters is responsible for the kidnapping. But nothing is as it seems, and Darby soon finds herself in a nightmare of epic proportions.
History doesn’t quite repeat itself, but damn, it sure can rhyme.
No Exit by Taylor Adams
This novel has so many twists, turns, and surprises that I want to keep my review fairly overarching so as not to give too much of the story away. I have read so many thriller and horror novels that have a few twists and turns here and there, but No Exit doesn’t relent. Author Taylor Adams pulls out all of the stops and surprises the reader left and right by creating a cast of characters that appear trustworthy on the surface – but are far from it. When you think you have some handle on where the story is going, Adams shows you that you are dead wrong by moving in yet another direction. The best part about this, however, is that it is all very realistic rather than outlandish, and that is probably what makes Darby’s situation so scary. It is so easy to think that this same nightmare could happen to you if you were in her situation. I will never trust anyone at a visitor’s center or rest stop ever again.
And suddenly she wasn’t afraid. Not anymore. She tasted something far more useful than fear – anger. She was livid.
No Exit by Taylor Adams
The only qualm I have with No Exit was that the ending was incredibly confusing. I had to read the last chapter multiple times to figure out what was going on. The writing towards the end felt like Adams was rushing the rest of the story, so I would have preferred some cleaner writing that would have made the ending pack as much of a punch as the rest of story. But other than that, I found the book highly enjoyable.
When you’re facing a lunch date with the Reaper, what are a few little bones and tendons?
No Exit by Taylor Adams
No Exit by Taylor Adams is an extremely suspenseful horror novel that has a few moments of gore but relies on the nightmarish circumstances of the story to scare the reader. It is impossible to put down and will have you questioning the reliability of those around you. It is a great winter horror read, and it is one that will haunt me for quite some time.
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