I’m trying to make it a habit to read newer books from the past couple of years. I wanted to read a horror so I looked up some recommendations and this book was well liked.
Personally, not a big fan of first person. I feel horror is best told through 3rd person but that’s biased of me, I understand that. Regardless, I feel the author delivered a good story. However I found it difficult to relate to.
I would label this a horror/coming of age story. Now I enjoy coming of age stories but I simply couldn’t connect to Marshall who was 17 years old.
Somethings that took me out of it- cliche love interest of girl best friend who is super duper smart but dating someone else. Also there was quite a bit of rock climbing and descriptions of rock climbing. Now it did have a purpose since Marshall has to climb something at the end of the story but it was sort of cheesy. Took me out of it.
The horror element was fun! But introduced very early and then disappears for a long time. Maybe like 150 pages before something scary/horror like happens.
The PI that Marshall works with was also sort of cliche but in a good way. Meant to push the story and towards the end, the twist of the PI was good. Didn’t really expect it and I felt there was some holes in his identity anyway, but still a nice wrap up.
All in all I find this book to be solid. I’d say a 3.5/5. If I was desperately looking for a coming of age story of a boy, I’d maybe put this at a 4/5.
by DapirateTroll