Daisy Allyn

As a reader my biggest pet peeve is when a book is labeled as one thing to 'trick' people into picking it up and it turns out to be a completely different genre. That is what this laughably labeled "literary horror" book was. There was nothing of literary quality in this book. It doesn't push boundaries, or play with any deeper themes than normal fiction. And while it was paranormal suspense, it was also very much christian fiction.

You may wonder why I didn't DNF the book, well I held up hope for a while that it wasn't playing out like I feared it might be, and the I just needed a full picture so i could write a full review. Also, mama didn't raise a quitter!

It was as if the author picked up on kids defeating 'evil' from IT and thought, what i drop the spider and turtle to just the devil and god? :| you don't say. Please write a giant book about that idea.

He clearly didn't realize that IT had themes and deeper meanings at play making it a story of literary merit. This book also seems to steal a lot from Stranger Things. I've only seen season one, but too many things are creepily similar. (OR maybe he did realize it. Whatever.)

I would also say that the author hasn't been around actual 7 year olds (these boys acted like 12 ) and may be holding a lot of Catholic guilt or dislikes Catholics in general? Take your own advice, "You're free now."

Had this book been genre'd properly I would have never picked it up. This guilt trip of malarkey could have had some sort of potential had the author not chosen to focus on why everyone is sinning and the over done idea of god vs. devil, a black and white good vs evil. IT'S 2020 WE ARE ONTO DEEPER IDEAS!

There is no deeper meaning or theme here. It is at face value a giant stereotype. From the stereotypical "all Catholics are hiding dark secrets" characters to the stereotypical town roles. Like men beating, hating, ignoring their wives, to a school teacher drunk every day at school. The sheriff that is haunted by that one case, to the wealthy snobby family that runs the town.

Had he written a story without all of that judgmental malarkey, and just kept this paranormal suspense idea it would have been a decent horror book.

While grammatically and sentence structure wise it is well written, the story has many point that are just unbelievable and eye roll worthy. It also repeats twists, and asks the reader to suspend their believe beyond the level that is acceptable.

Spoiler Alert God wins. We're all very surprised at this.

I know this book has an audience, I am so confused as to why the authors publishing company is choosing to purposely bait and switch it to the wrong readers. To hit charts maybe? I don't know but I won't read another book from this author, and I will also question books from this publisher before picking them up. (yes, I too picked it up because I love horror & read his previous wallflower book)

Other possible spoilery things that really were just wrong -

- Everyone calling/thinking of Ed by the name the BULLY gave him. wtf?! Totally makes sense.
- The senior in high school that can't come to terms with the fact that you can't get pregnant by a blow job, or someone touching your book. Honestly all those 'sexual thoughts are a sin' scenes were so laughable & cringe worthy.

2 days later, i'm sure glad the nightmare is over. He was so right. This book was a dream gone sick.… (más)