Halloween Fiend

This was on my Spooky Season TBR for a while because I LOVE the cover. This year I finally was able to get it and give it a read. 

The town of Strang is visited nightly by a deadly creature. If they leave out a live offering nightly (usually a Guinea pig, cat, rabbit...) the creature leaves them alone. No one remembers why or how this agreement was struck, but if it works, it works, right? In a perfect world at least... 

So because I always listen to an audio and read a physical book at the same time, I had this really unique experience of reading these two very similar scenes in two drastically different novels within like an hour of each other. Both this novella and Thomas Olde Heuvelt's ‘Hex' feature a fall festival that isn't really dedicated to their town's (I'll say) affliction, but at the same time kind of is. It was cool to see how each framed how their town responded to what they had been forced to accept as normal over time. 

A liked how this author used the short length to really drive home how many bad things were happening to the main character, Barry. Typically writing includes things befalling the main, it adds tension, but just because this one was short, didn't mean the author cut down on the amount their main had to deal with, they used it to reinforce just how bad he really had it. (Really bad). 

Personally a 4/5* for me. Enjoyable, spooky, I'm glad I read it. 

I made it through to the end but there honestly wasn't much to love here beyond the Halloweenie aesthetic and even that wasn't used to its full potential. The characters were bland and the titular Halloween creature too vague and nebulously described to really keep you interested. There's probably a good story lurking in here somewhere but as is I was pretty let down. If pressed to say anything positive I'd say that I (mostly) liked the fiend's rhythmic dialogue.

Set this right on your Halloween shelf next to Ray Bradbury. It's compulsively readable, really friggin scary and I loved it.