Genre- Horror, but secretly Religious Fiction
I was so excited when I saw that this existed because Stephen Chbosky also wrote The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is one of my favorite books. The writing is beautiful and the story is relatable. I could say quite the opposite for this book.
The description of this book is:
A horror novel in which a single-mother takes her seven-year-old son and flees an abusive relationship in order to create a better life. After settling into a small town, the son vanishes in the woods for six days. When he returns, he has an “imaginary friend” in the form of a voice commanding him to build a tree house. Soon enough, the mother and son are involved in a fight of good vs. evil.
This book has really irritated me. For starters, it is way too long. It’s 700 pages, and boy does it feel that way. I felt as if the author was trying to hit a page-count for a college paper. More than half of this book should have been cut-down.
The portrayal of seven-year-olds was inaccurate. I kept thinking I was reading about high-school students until the words “7-years-old” popped up. What makes this particularly funny, is the author decided to compensate for his inability to write a young character by having him spontaneously become a genius. Seriously. One day he can’t read the word “school” and the next he’s talking like he is in AP Lit., which is a pretty convenient excuse for Mr. Chbosky to age his character’s mentality.
The author also gets possessed by a 13-year-old girl for the last few hundred pages of this book and tYpeS lIke tHis. That’s supposed to represent Satan. Not sure what part of the bible mentions Satan using poor grammar, but hey, it’s his book.
The book started off with promise. It seemed like it could be spooky, and the main character was very likable. Then it started in with a lot about deer. Like, a lot about deer. Deer staring, deer biting, deer charging. The deer really stole the show. Then came all of the CHRIST WILL SAVE YOU morality that I did not sign up for in a horror novel, and I was done. Not to mention, he calls this poor kid “Special Ed” throughout the book because he has a learning disability. Not cool.
Official Rating:
-1=No +1=Yes 0=Kind of
- Was the book interesting? Kind of, but I was lied to (0)
- Was it easy to finish (even if I didn’t like it)? Yes(1)
- Was it emotionally engaging? Yes. I saw a glimmer of what could have been in the way I connected to a few of the characters (1)
- Was it memorable? Kind of…I will remember how bad it was (0)
- Would I read it again? Never (-1)
1 star. Do not read. Save yourself.
