The Book:
Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 by Lisa Unger
Published February 25, 2025 by Park Row
Date read: January 7, 2025
Find more February 2025 releases here.
Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 spoilers can be found below, but they’re hidden under a spoiler tag so you’re safe to keep scrolling if you’d just like to read my review.
The Characters:
The competitors: Adele, Cody, and Malinka
The company: Maverick, Angeline, Gustavo, Alex, Hector
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The Plot (from Goodreads):
When the real game begins, who will make it to the count of 10? Charismatic daredevil and extreme adventurer Maverick Dillan invites you to the ultimate game of hide-and-seek. But as the players gather on Falcao Island, the event quickly spirals into a chilling test of survival. A storm rages as a deadly threat stalks the contestants, turning the challenge into something far more sinister than the social media stunt it was intended to be. Enter Adele, a single mother with a fierce determination to protect her children at all costs. When she begins the game, she unwittingly enters a twisted web of deception and intrigue. Can she maneuver through the treacherous storm and the relentless competition and get home to her family? In a ruthless battle for survival where the stakes are higher than ever, the blurry line between the virtual and the real proves that the only person we can trust is ourselves.
Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 Spoilers
The Reveal:
Oh man, trying my best to remember the ending of this one.
Malinka was friends with Chloe, the girl who had disappeared on Maverick’s last game, and was there to find out the truth of what happened to her.
Alex disappeared partway through the event, and Angeline and Tavo found him dead in the hotel room when they went looking for him. They and Maverick dumped his body into the sea rather than call the police.
Chloe was alive. Tavo and Hector had turned on Maverick and had teamed up with Chloe to take him down. Maverick had been stealing money from the company, and people were getting hurt trying to duplicate his stunts. Chloe and Hector were trying to expose all the fraud and corruption, and Chloe’s disappearance was meant to drum up media attention. Presumably Hector had killed Alex, who was about to expose everything for Maverick’s sake.
The Ending:
The building the game was being held in began to collapse in the storm. Adele and the other competitors made it off the island fine, with help from her son’s gamer friend who was a local. Miller (her husband) had been in touch with her son Blake via his Fortnite-dupe game. After the events of the game, he turned himself in to give Adele and the kids peace. Adele was sort of dating Wild Cody at the end.
Gustavo didn’t make it out when the building collapsed. Angeline and Maverick escaped together with the stolen money. They had a few day of peace on an isolated island, before the police showed up and presumably arrested them for the company’s fraud.
Spoiler Thoughts:
The whole storyline with Adele’s husband felt very unfinished. In my opinion the resolution was very anticlimactic for how much time the author spent building it up. I think this storyline could have been skipped entirely – as well as the chapters from the POV of Adele’s children – in order to give more chapters to the extreme hide-and-seek game. I felt that the game was barely touched on, and that’s what I was the most interested in!
I hope these Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 spoilers were helpful.
The Review:
I absolutely loved the premise of “extreme hide and seek” gone wrong. The setting was perfectly atmospheric: a crumbling old hotel on a remote island, during a storm of course. There’s a hint of survivalist suspense, but since this is essentially reality TV the characters seem safe enough. The host is also suspicious, setting the scene early on.
Unfortunately, very little time was spent on the actual game. Most of the story was about Maverick’s shady business practices and online drama. I would have liked a bit more survival! I also didn’t think we needed quite as many scenes from the POV of Adele’s children (more on that in my spoiler discussion).
This is a quick and enjoyable read. I binged most of it on New Year’s Eve, and the pages turned quickly. I always enjoy Lisa Unger books!
I did think it was a little odd that the author spent time coming up with new names for TikTok, Instagram, Fortnite, and so on, rather than just using the real-world names. It was clear which platforms she meant, but it took some explanation that wouldn’t have been required if she just said “TikTok”. I understand not wanting to advertise for shitty companies, though.
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