Is this Watching Elf more than just a doll… You’d Better Watch Out by Frank Cadavar

Fourteen year old Evangeline knows she isn’t good. She knows she might even be a bully to her quiet, studious classmate Olivia. But when her Dad returns home with a sinister looking Watching Elf, desperately hoping it will push her to behave, ‘just in time for Christmas’, she’s positive he’s lost the plot. Just how old does he think she is?!
But then footsteps scuttle past flickering fairy lights, when she’s sneaking to places she shouldn’t. A malevolent figure is reflected in her phone screen, when she’s about to share malicious photographs. And, when a bullying teacher is brutally attacked during her detention, Evangeline starts to wonder: is this Watching Elf more than just a doll?
And not to be forgotten, is Olivia. Always perfect Olivia. There’s just something not right about her; she’s got a part to play in this but Evangeline can’t quite figure out what. All she knows is Olivia may not be as innocent or as perfect as she seems…

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Hi and welcome to my review of You’d Better Watch Out! 

You’d Better Watch Out is the first instalment of The Blood Texts, which is a brand new horror anthology for teens to rival Point Horror and Fear Street. Admittedly, my teens were a decade or two ago, but I still had a great time with this story, and it’s really made me wonder who this mysterious Frank Cadaver really is.

It might be a tad early in the year to read about an evil Christmas Elf, especially for someone who hardly reads Christmas-themed books and can’t stand the mention of Christmas before mid-December, but it’s the spooky month and apparently, Christmas Elves can be surprisingly scary!

You’d Better Watch Out is a delightfully creepy story. I will never not be creeped out by dolls coming to life, particularly when they’re small and murderous, and especially when they’re written as vividly as this elf right here. However, there’s more to the story than its creep factor. There is also a bullying angle, which I think was well done, somewhat moralising but not in a pedantic manner. Moreover, the murderous elf is not just an elf, it has its own origin story steeped in folklore, which takes the story to a level I did not expect but I highly appreciated.

Overall, You’d Better Watch Out is an entertaining horror tale for teens and older readers alike and I can’t wait for the second book in the series (Uncle Zeedie), which will be out next year.

You’d Better Watch Out is out today, 31 October.

Thanks to UCLan Publishing and Graeme Williams for the digital review copy. All opinions are my own.