Amazon Prime’s Harlan Coben's Shelter is the latest addition to the slew of supernatural teen-led mysteries that have come out in recent years. Like Netflix’s Lockwood & Co., Paramount’s School Spirits, and even Showtime’s Yellowjackets, Shelter is genuinely intriguing and surprisingly mature, making it watchable regardless of how old you are. The show’s TV-14 rating lets the teens in the series act their age (that is, both crude and childlike), which adds to the show's authentic feel. It verges on being self-serious at times, which is funny when you hear them say things like “Octo Face got her” with a straight face, but those slips are forgivable. It doesn’t detract from the show’s compelling mystery and enjoyable performances.

At its heart, Shelter is still a teen drama that relies on its young performers to make coming-of-age cliches like love and friendship as charming, relatable, and believable as they can be. The actors do a splendid job of this. Mickey’s friends, Spoon (Adrian Greensmith) and Ema (Abby Corrigan) are instantly likable, the perfect comedic foils to Mickey’s self-serious moments. Mickey, for his part, goes through multiple experiences that have been shoved before in mainstream TV. The show doesn’t sugarcoat his struggles as a biracial teen, and as the son of a woman going through clinical depression, the show also highlights how mental health issues can affect not just the person going through them but the people around them as well.