Christine

Still delightful, as the rest of the series is. But I miss ART!

This is what it says on the tin - it's a trashy domestic thriller that doesn't demand (or withstand) too much deep analysis. It was mostly a fun read, though I think maybe the first part dragged for me because they expected the reader to empathize with Nellie and worry that Vanessa was going to do something awful to her out of jealousy. However, it became very clear to me near the beginning that Richard was bad news - a manipulative, predatory control freak - and probably Vanessa was trying to save her replacement from Richard

Still this had some storytelling tricks that surprised me, and I was curious to see how it all worked out. I think ultimately the ending was a little lackluster, and the desperation to force in yet another twist worked against the story.

Overall, fun beach read or palate cleanser if you want something a bit silly but still compelling.

If you like creepy weird fiction, but don't need it to be purely bleak, this one might be for you! I was immediately drawn in by the homey and lovable Uncle Earl and his cozily weird museum, but I wasn't sure where this story was headed. Then when supernatural/sci-fi stuff started to happen, I was here for it. But imagine my delight when I noticed the willows were not just a passing bit of background, and there were creepy funneled holes all over the sand - ‘HOLY COW is she embroidering on [b:Algernon Blackwood 1335601 The Willows Algernon Blackwood https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348548258l/1335601.SX50.jpg 2588003]?!' Yes, reader, she was, and it was almost entirely successful in my opinion. What a charge to realize a classic but largely unknown story by the author of [b:The Wendigo 1137702 The Wendigo Algernon Blackwood https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1181290361l/1137702.SX50.jpg 2482119] is the basis for this supremely unsettling, compelling horror story! This is less toward the hopeless Lovecraft/Ligotti end of the spectrum, and honestly more toward the Raimi end - there are seriously chilling and terrifying bits, but also almost a slapstick element at times, and a good deal of snark. For me, it worked!I guess technically this is a 4.5 for me due to some reliance on a couple of colossally stupid decisions by the protagonists, and one point that the readers can see perfectly clearly yet the main character misses in a way that starts to seem dense (but is defensible if you take the point of view that someone really experiencing these things wouldn't notice what we readers in our comfortable chairs can see much earlier).

Finally accepting that this goes in my DNF pile.

If you want a spooky, nostalgic adventure by a pack of generic white tween boys on their bikes, just go read some Bradbury. He does it way better, and while poetic is infinitely more concise.

If you want a non-supernatural nostalgic adventure by a pack of distinctive white tween boys, just go read “The Body” or watch Stand by Me.

If you want a spooky, nostalgic adventure by a pack of tween misfits (including a girl and an African American boy) who are all well-drawn and distinctive characters, just go read IT. Try to ignore the SUPER WEIRD and uncomfortable event at the, uh, climax that I still don't understand King getting away with. The rest of the story is pure gold.

My recommendation is not to bother with this one. Why?

- The characters are dull and largely interchangeable. The closest it comes to painting unique characters is designating The Smart Kid, The Dumb Oaf, The Little Brother, The Catholic One, and so on. Even though the Smart Kid was the most interesting, I found myself constantly confusing him with the main character (who has no discernible personality traits) because they have similar names.

- It's not scary. The story meanders a lot, with long stretches of gee-whiz nostalgia punctuated with sudden interpolations of horror cliche set pieces. Things that should have had me squirming were dulled because they're secondary to the lengthy naturalistic backstory. They pop up and then are forgotten in favor of something ludicrously mundane. Moreover, the horror is neither left mysterious enough to be scary nor explained well enough to be satisfying. We're left in the completely bland place between, where one starts to ask questions like, “Are the ghouls just trying to gaslight these kids?” “Why do these supernatural creatures attack in broad daylight but then hide when a grownup comes around?” “Seriously? It's an evil . . . bell?”

- It's annoyingly sexist. The female characters are present enough around the fringes of the story to create a misogynistic undertone absent from the Bradbury and King stories where the main characters simply don't have girls on their radar. When one boy mentally reviles his mother for being an irresponsible slut of a bad mom, it's not super clear if the author means to show the boy in a bad light, or agrees with his assessment. The Bev-analog has no point of view and serves only as a sex object on the bare periphery of the story. It's made more frustrating by a tantalizing aside painting Mike's grandmother as a badass, complex character whom I'd much rather read about. But within the current story, she's literally mute and paralyzed.

This was disappointing. I really, really tried to like it. But now I just get more annoyed the more I read, so better to stop.

I was going to give this 4 stars for compulsiveness of reading, but had to deduct for a couple significant problems:

1.) the constant irritation of poor writing/editing (uncounted dangling participles, and dumb stuff like “Sutcliffe and Pettigrew laughing uproariously with a drink in their hand.” Really? They have a single drink in their somehow common hand? Or “He frowns, smiling a little,” or the occasional slips from present tense narration. Come on, guys.)

2.) Turton wants you to know that fat people are so totally gross, y'all. GROSS! Don't get him started on old people - yech! (And yes arguably these are prejudices of the narrator, that Turton presents as a growth experience for him when he appreciates the hosts' good points. But it's over the top.)

3.) no spoilers, but the utter failure of the framing story when subjected to the slightest analysis. It's very, very clear that Turton thought “wouldn't it be cool to write an Agatha Christie/Quantum Leap/Memento mashup?” and then struggled to come up with a justification for why Aiden is in that position. I can't even call it Fridge Logic because it bothered me even as I was reading - the minute you think about the supposed explanation of this setup, you hit a bunch of unanswered, “But why would he . . . ?” “HOW did they . . .?” “Wait, how does X indicate Y?” type questions.

THAT SAID, go ahead and read this with the expectation that it's a fun ride, it doesn't have a real satisfying meta-explanation, but Turton did a lot of amazing work weaving and keeping track of threads, crafting characters, and making you desperate to know what happens next.