Book Review: Ten by Gretchen McNeil

Title: Ten
Author: Gretchen McNeil
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Date of Publication: September 18, 2012
Format: hardcover, 294 pages
Source: Bought
Get your copy:  Barnes & Noble / Amazon

And their doom comes swiftly.
It was supposed to be the weekend of their lives-an exclusive house party on Henry Island.  Best friends, Meg and Minnie each have their reasons for being there(which involves T.J., the school's most eligible bachelor) and look forward to three glorious days of boys, booze, and fun-filled luxury.
But what they expect is definitely not what they get, and what starts out as fun turns dark and twisted after the discovery of a DVD with a                  sinister message: Vengeance is Mine.
Suddenly people are dying, and with a storm raging, the teens are cut off from the outside world.  No electricity, no phones, no internet, and a ferry that isn't scheduled to return for two days.  As the deaths become more violent and the teens turn on each other, can Meg find the killer before more people die?  Or is the killer closer to her than she could ever imagine?
-Goodreads Summary

My feelings:

Well we all know how much I do love my covers, right?  This is a creepy cover indeed.  It makes me think of that mini-series called Harper's Island where it was a big wedding party that pretty much had a killer running around.  Well this has a very similar approach except this is teenagers instead of adults.  
Our main protagonist, Meg, is more or less forced to be there because her "best friend" wants to go.  Meg is charismatic; everyone seems to like her right off and she gets along with most everyone there.  
Everyone else you root for but aren't sure if they will make it-but some you are secretly hoping they get the ax; so to speak.  One person I couldn't stand at all was Meg's bff, Minnie.  UGH! This girl just ticked me off to no end!  She has no concept of friendship because she basically looks at Meg as her slave more than anything else.  
All of the other characters were decent.  T.J. was a pretty cool dude.  He wasn't portrayed as the typical football jock and I actually liked him even more for it. 
The secondary characters felt just like that-secondary characters.  We get a little background on them, but a few came after the fact.  It was hard to get attached to anyone because you didn't know who would be taken out quickly or not.

You are pretty much thrust into the whole creepy factor right away.  This I totally loved!  The videotape was such a nice added "scare the hell outta you" feature.  I did feel, though, people were too hesitant to believe what was happening.  A lot of folks kept second guessing themselves until it was too late. 
I liked all the small details that Ms. McNeil added to keep the scare factor in the story going.  One scene involving the neighbor's house had me pretty freaked out.  
There were times that I had figured out a few parts of the plot early on but I never guessed who the killer was until the very end.  I wasn't even going in that direction at all!  
And of course throughout all this chaotic killing frenzy and terrible storm, there is a small romantic factor playing within the other plot lines.  
My biggest pet peeve with this book was Meg's unfailing way to second guess herself.  I felt like she was very astute, sitting in the background studying everything and everyone else, and I just didn't like the way she didn't have enough confidence to believe in herself.  

Other than that, I really liked Ten!  Fans of movies like Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Urban Legend will get much delight in this creepy entertaining thriller.