Tastes Like Candy

By Ivy Tholen

Book Overview

"It does not go light on the gore " -Stephen Graham Jones, NYT Bestselling Author of My Heart is a Chainsaw, I Was a Teenage Slasher, and Don't Fear the Reaper

A senior year goodbye morphs into carnival carnage ...

Everyone at Pritchett High wants an invitation to the Senior Scavenge, and this year, Violet Warren and her friends are the lucky ones. Eight girls will break into the Poison Apple Carnival after hours for a scavenger hunt, a school tradition to welcome the best and brightest into their senior year.

But warm welcomes turn into gory goodbyes as those hunting become the hunted. One by one, Violet's friends are viciously murdered by a mysterious masked figure running loose through the carnival grounds.

Can Violet survive this roller coaster ride from hell and unmask the killer in time?

Or will her head end up on a cotton candy pike?

Heathers meets Fear Street in this sickly-sweet, hilariously over the top slasher novel with a killer unmasking you won't see coming.

For fans of:

Adam Cesare's Clown in a CornfieldUnhinged masked killersOld school horror moviesFierce final girlsGruesome rising body countsOutrageous kills

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1464258961
• ISBN13: 9781464258961
• Release Date: September 2025
• Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 14 to 18 years
• Grade Range: Grade 9 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

80’s slasher flick set in 2020

I read this in one night. It was so fun I couldn’t put it down. The death scenes made me laugh and cringe and my brain squirm. I’m currently in an 80’s-horror-movie-like-book phase and even though it takes place in 2020 with modern technology it really scratched the itch. The characters are mostly fleshed out, but there are many girls in the group which took a little bit to get straight. There was a good amount of description and scene setting so I had a great imagining of it all. Sometimes authors give too much or not enough, for me this was right in the sweet spot. Excited to read her other books if they are anywhere near as fun and engaging as this one!