From the back cover:

"Go-back, go-back, go-back...the steady sound of the train rushing over the tracks warns Hannah. She and her friends are on a trip that begins as a fun cross-country tour - until they learn what's on the train with them. A coffin. Frog's coffin. His real name was Roger. But from the day he started at Parker High to the day of his sudden and horrible death, he was taunted and ridiculed , cruelly nicknamed Frog by his classmates. One by one Hannah's friends guiltily confess the nasty things they did to Frog. And then, one by one, they are viciously attacked. It seems Frog is out for revenge. But Frog's dead - isn't he?"

Review:

One of my favorite slasher movies is the classic 1980 "Terror Train" starring Jamie Lee Curtis. If you haven't seen it, check it out! Diane Hoh's "The Train" sort of reminds me of the YA horror version of that classic movie.

"The Train" deals with a group of friends and their classmates going on the imaginatively titled "Parker High School's Teen Tour from Chicago to San Francisco."  The trip is being chaperoned by a couple of teachers, and just so happens to be transporting a coffin. The body belongs to a classmate that the group of friends used to pick on, and is conveniently headed to Frog's home in San Francisco. So is "Frog" out for revenge...from beyond the grave?

I love the atmosphere in this novel with the characters being trapped on a train. The basic premise is very fun and I'm surprised more films and books haven't taken advantage of it. All Young Adult Horror books end with some sort of twist, and once again I mis-remembered the twist in this book. I could have sworn it went a different way, but I was wrong. There were times when the book moved the characters off the train, including during the climax. I think this was a mistake, and it would have been far more effective to keep the action aboard the moving train. At least that's my useless opinion!

4 out of 5