Deadstream by Mar Romasco-Moore (I Am the Ghost in Your House) is an addictive, anxiety-provoking YA thriller in which livestreamers mysteriously die after an entity that is visible only on-screen shows up in their videos.
Seventeen-year-old Teresa suffers severe agoraphobia after surviving the car wreck that killed her best friend. Now, she locks herself in her bedroom for days at a time, going live online as Replay, an "entirely genderless" gamer ("the way she'd like to be"). She is compelled to investigate when her fellow livestreamers start falling prey to a frightening phenomenon. The incidents begin with a command in chat: "open the door." Freaked-out viewers type warnings that go unheeded, and a mysterious being appears behind the livestreamer--not physically, but on the screen. Brick, one such victim, subsequently goes catatonic. Then Ozma, a trans friend who best understands and supports Teresa, succumbs to the same sinister syndrome. To stop the shadow entity and save Ozma, Teresa will have to act outside the safe confines of her home.
This unsettling third-person narrative includes mixed media (livestream transcripts, text messages, online forums), creating a fully immersive, incessantly creepy experience that allows for startling jump scares. Romasco-Moore convincingly portrays a teen whose persistent trauma warps her perception of reality; her anxiety, "a faint but persistent hum," rings true, as does her connection with Ozma. Teresa's love of streaming is beautifully rendered (it "feels almost like the viewers are there with her, like they are all one big organism"). Other teen worries, small and large, like view counts and online death threats, also feature in this frightening, queer-centric tale. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer