Small Angels

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Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for providing an ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Small Angels is a slow, creeping horror story of a novel. You aren't quite sure where the author is trying to take you, until all the sudden — you're there, right at the heart of it. It's a spooky tale at the heart of this book, but it's not particularly scary. I thoroughly enjoyed Lauren Owen's debut, The Quick, back when I read it years ago. With Small Angels, though, I found myself wanting more. Just a tiny bit more of something.

At the heart of this story is Mockbeggar — a slightly sentient forest. It wants to feel loved, it wants stories and to be a part of something. Two hundred years before the book starts, Mockbeggar falls in love with a young boy named Harry Child. Harry has, to put it simply, an awful life. He comes to a horribly tragic end, and Mockbeggar basically keeps him as part of itself. Harry haunts the woods. (I love the idea of a haunted forest, but there wasn't enough here to really do it for me. I wanted something extra, another entity, something else in the forest.) Harry becomes our story's villain.

And to start, you feel bad for him, but as the book goes on and on...you start to resent him. You resent him badly. Because as a part of his haunting, he has held the Gonne family captive for hundreds of years. They live their entire lives around his happiness, making Harry-the-ghost pleased or content with their misery. It's the Gonne family that are the other main characters of this story. Lucia, in particular, is one of the stars of the story.

It's Lucia that I did not understand. She's told time and time again not to mess with Mockbeggar, not to go looking for trouble, or playing with Harry. So what does she do, time and time again? It was so frustrating as a reader to sit and have to read about her completely ignoring people who told her what not to do. It is Lucia that brings about everything that happens in this book.

Small Angels is very well written, but the end of the book really left me wanting more. I don't want to spoil anything, but the way the end is written feels very much like a cop-out. It all ends way, way too neatly for me. Despite that, Small Angels is atmospheric, spooky, and haunting. A perfect read for someone who doesn't like being frightened, but wants something at least somewhat Halloween-y when the season comes about.