I got this book for Christmas and finished it in two days, and I gotta say that I’m blown away by the story (not so much the characters, but we’ll get to that).
I won’t say much about the plot because this is one that you have to read without knowing anything about it. All I knew going into it was that a man and woman from the same small town experienced some weird things as children, moved on with life, but are now back to face their demons.
It was almost impossible to find places to stop reading, as it seemed like every chapter ended with some tantalizing revelation or a terrifying turn of events. It keeps you tightly wound the entire time you’re on this rollercoaster of a read. Towards the end the story threatened to unravel a couple times, at least in my opinion. There were moments were I thought, “Great, he’s really jumped the shark now. What a convoluted mess!”
But every time the story snapped back into place and powered ahead, like a rubber band stretched almost to its breaking point before being released.
The tension was also well done. Malignant shadows were constantly in my peripherals, lurking. And when they appeared the story became truly horrifying. No spoilers here but the scene in a coal mine was frightening as hell. Very poor (good?) choice I made to read it just before bed!
The writing was also great. The dialogue was for the most part natural and believable, that’s something I care a great deal about in books I read. A little bit of head jumping and the occasional switch from 1st to 3rd person as the author would go from narration to inner thoughts sometimes too abruptly, but not a major issue.
The ending was great. I wasn’t sure I liked it at first but the epilogue knocked it out of the park. Left a great taste on my palate.
(Also the author’s note at the end was funny and a delight to read. It also contained some excellent advice for aspiring authors struggling with a story that is threatening to burst out of them.)
Now for the negatives: most of the characters. Maddie, one of the main protagonists, drove me absolutely nuts for the first third of the book. She’s the “Strong Woman” of the book, and I mean that as a bad cliché.
I’ve written before how much I dislike this stereotyped kind of character, where a woman is “strong” because she gets piss drunk on whiskey, curses all the time, and carries at least 37 chips on her shoulder. She’s not strong, she’s just a jerk and early on is constantly gaslighting her husband.
At one point, when Maddie’s husband is struggling with the trauma associated with his childhood home, Maddie just straight up tells him that if he gets too mopey about it then he’s on his own. But a couple chapters later, when weird things happen to Maddie, she just packs a suitcase, refuses to tell hubby what’s going on, where she’s going, or when she’ll be back, and she does this fully expecting him to just go with it. Seems like she expects to get far more than she gives in that relationship.
Also, and thank God this didn’t continue past the first 100 pages or so, but Maddie was constantly called ‘Mads’ by her BFF and husband and that was infuriating. It is such an affront to my eyes and inner voice to have to read/think of ‘Mads’ as a nickname that anyone would be okay with. It’s dissonant, hard to say, plus Maddie is already a nickname. Stop it, just stop.
Some characters were good (Nate, Fig, Carl). A couple were great. But a couple important ones drove me nuts, and several minor ones were such bad clichés.
Another thing was the near constant injection of the author’s politics into the story. Several times the characters are discussing how messed up the world is, but they only ever harp on two things and these two things only: climate change and school shootings. I kid you not, I lost track of how many times this was brought up just in the first 50 pages (oh and of course a thinly veiled shot at former President Trump too).
There was also a random argument between the protagonists Fig and Nate. They’re coworkers, Fig is black, and he’s upset on their first day together because he thinks Nate’s whiteness got him an opportunity he himself would never get. This creates instant animosity, but literally a handful of pages later they’re fast friends and the incident is never again addressed. So that just seemed random and unnecessary.
I’ve mentioned before that I HATE when authors bludgeon me over the head with their politics. I get it, these are issues near to your heart. No need to remind me every ten pages.
Also it is SO shortsighted to look at the issues in the world today and say “Things have never been worse”. Humans have been around for a very long time. School shootings and climate change are terrible things but maybe read a book about Genghis Khan or Ivan the Terrible before proclaiming this the bloodiest, bleakest era of human history.
There’s a few more things that rubbed me wrong but this review is really long already. All I’ll say is unfortunately this author hit a lot of my pet peeves with his characters, but the story itself brought this read from a 2-star to 4-star. Which is weird because usually it’s great characters rescuing a bland story.
Alright I lied, one more thing. Would it kill authors or TV/movie producers to have a group of teenage friends who don’t swear like sailors? Yeah I know a lot of kids swear but a lot don’t, or at least not so much. Please, I’m begging now. Just one story with teenagers who only let slip the occasional ‘damn’ or ‘ass’.
Peter Martuneac - Author 