Dealing with the positives first, this had a very sinister, dark plot for a children's story. It also had references to lots of urban legends which is a subgenre of horror I've always been a fan of. Another thing that this series does really well is its portrayal of diversity when it comes to its protagonists. Finally a little bonus Easter egg I noticed was there's a retirement home in the story and it was named Shady Acres, which was a great little nod that I very much enjoyed. 
So we get to why this only gets three stars and it's for only one reason but unfortunately it makes up most of the book and that's the fact that the meat of this story is the same scene repeated over and over again. Our two main characters on the hunt for the titular 'Snatcher' go into and return from the woods no fewer than six times (possibly seven, I lost count). I just found this so egregious and it just stank of page count filler. I just found it such a shame as this could have been really strong without so much repetitiveness. The first book in the series had no such thing and was so fun and action packed.