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Creep: A Love Story
By Mary Cosola,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Teen girl stalks popular couple in tepid thriller.
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What's the Story?
CREEP is a psychological thriller about a teen girl, Rafi, who idolizes a popular couple at her school. Rafi's parents bailed on her early in her life, and she lives with her unwell grandma and inattentive grandpa. This sense of abandonment drives Rafi's quest to worm her way into people's lives and her fixation with happy couples. She's had some past issues with stalking, but instead of getting the help she needs, she has become better at hiding her unsettling behavior. She latches on to couple Laney and Nico and is determined to be a part of their lives. She lies, online stalks them, and uses any ruse she can to get close to them. She convinces herself that she's the solution to all their issues. The thriller aspect comes from wondering how far she'll go and whether Laney and Nico will ever figure out that they've let a psychopath into their lives -- and at what cost.
Is It Any Good?
This unsettling psychological thriller about a teen obsessed with a couple at her school has a great premise but falls flat in the execution. In Creep, author Lygia Day Peñaflor provides a nice twist by narrating the story from Rafi's point of view and showing how her delusional, creepy thinking progresses. The problem is that Rafi's brain is an exhausting place to be. The story starts out strong, showing Rafi's loneliness and sense of abandonment after her parents left her to be raised by her grandparents. We initially believe she merely has a fan-girl type of interested in the beautiful and popular couple Laney and Nico. As her interest moves into unhealthy obsession, the tension around how far Rafi will go ramps up, but eventually she becomes a tiresome narrator.
The book would have benefited from a few chapters from Laney's or Nico's point of view, something to highlight the tension of the unsuspecting objects of her obsession. The ending is out of the blue and generally unsatisfying. Overall, the story explores interesting themes in an intriguing way, but it didn't hold together as well as it could have.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how to create healthy friendships. In Creep, Rafi believes she has to use tricks and lies to engineer a friendship with Laney and Nico. Are friendships any good if you pretend to be someone else to make people like you? Was there a healthy, positive way that Rafi could have built a friendship with Laney and Nico?
What do you think about the idea of teen popularity in real life vs. how it's portrayed in books and movies? What does being popular even mean, and why does it seem so desirable?
If someone you knew was showing signs of erratic behavior or mental illness, what would you do? Talk to them, their parents, a counselor?
Book Details
- Author: Lygia Day Peñaflor
- Genre: Contemporary Fiction
- Topics: Friendship , High School
- Book type: Fiction
- Publisher: Clarion Books
- Publication date: September 27, 2022
- Publisher's recommended age(s): 14 - 18
- Number of pages: 267
- Available on: Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
- Last updated: September 18, 2022
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