Dead Weight: Murder at Camp Bloom by Terry Blas, Molly Muldoon, and Matthew Seely
I checked this one out from the library on a whim simply because the premise was intriguing: a group of kids at a summer weight-loss camp become amateur sleuths after witnessing the gruesome murder of a beloved camp counselor. And as they try to determine the killer’s identity, they uncover shocking secrets lurking just beneath Camp Bloom’s seemingly idyllic surface. It plays out a bit like a Scooby-Doo episode, albeit with some queer themes and discussions of body image. In the end, Dead Weight is just OK. Of the four main characters, I only found one really interesting (the tech-obsessed Black nerd who struggles with his family’s health history), and when the killer’s identity and motivations are finally revealed, they’re rather mundane and underwhelming. I bumped up my score a bit because Dead Weight’s heart is clearly in the right place, but I was also left wanting more.