Small Spaces
Ratings64
Average rating4
I've been waiting to start this series for a while, since I accidentally read book 3 first and really enjoyed that one.
This was such a fun read and I had a great time. Can't wait to read the other books in the series.
If you love Stranger Things as much as I do, you need to pick up this book!
This middle grade follows Ollie, an eleven year old avid reader who lost her mother after a tragic accident. One day on her way home from school, she sees a seemingly crazy woman attempt to throw a book into the river. Ollie, in an attempt to save a precious book, snatches it and runs. In this book is a story about the Smiling Man who will make a deal with anyone for the right price.
The next day, she is on a field trip to Smoke Hollow, a local farm with a dark history and a creepy, never ending mass of scarecrows. On their way home from the trip, the bus breaks down. Ollie and two of her classmates are the only ones to follow the bus drivers warning and run into the forest. With his one final piece of advice, “Avoid large places. Keep to small,” the kids are swept on a terrifying adventure to steer clear of the scarecrows and find their way back home.
This book was so cute and fun! I loved Ollie's humor and her budding friendship with her two classmates. It also touches on grief and healing.
There was a quick resolution but it's middle grade so it's expected.
Overall, I can't wait to pick up the next few books in this series. They're the perfect mix between spooky without being scary.
This was a really good middle grade that creeps out both kids and adults alike. It took a while to really get going, but I loved the ending!
My dudes i read this book in one go. I had to know how it was going to go for Ollie and her classmates so I sacrificed a good night's sleep. I knew from The Bird and The Nightingale that Katherine Arden could write spooky and tense scenes and she delivered with this one. I will be reading the next book for sure.
Terribly slow beginning about a girl reading a book, complete with long passages taken from the book she's reading. So dry.
When the action finally picks up midway, this story is very riveting and exciting. Whoa!
Unfortunately, the conclusion was a little too pat and anticlimatic. Meh.
Not sure if we'll read the rest of the series.
Made me think a little bit of Coraline. I liked it but I'm not sure I'm gonna be reading the sequels.
3.5 stars
I picked this book up because I loved Katherine Arden's other books, the Winternight Trilogy. I didn't realize this was for a younger audience until I started, so that's my bad.
Jumping into the book. It's a nice spooky little mystery. The kind you want to read as a kid in October for a little bit of spook. The main character comes across a creepy book, visits a farm, and then the creepy factor kicks in.
The book itself did a nice blend between creating a spooky atmosphere and being appropriate for a young audience. There were times it got really spooky, but Katherine did a great job at turning it around to keep kids from getting too scared. Her greatest strength in writing is definitely creating an immersive atmosphere.
Now why only 3.5? A few things, the MC is not very likeable, especially at the beginning of the book. Lashing out, and being overall unpleasant. Yes, she has gone through a traumatic experience, but her attitude and actions towards others is excessive. The other thing that got me was that this book felt old. Not like a classic, but like someone my age trying to write based on their memory of grade school rather than talking with kids currently in that age group. While some actions are similar to kids of every decade, other actions were incredibly out of place. In fact, if you told me this book came out in the mid 90's, I'd believe it.
Overall, it was an enjoyable, quick read. Though I didn't find it nearly as memorable as the Winternight trilogy.
Deliciously creepy :) Can't wait to read this with my boys and add it to my classroom library
this was such a fun middle-grade spooky read that brought me back to my 3rd grade days of sitting in the library during lunch to read Goosebumps & bringing those books home over the weekend.
I loved following Ollie & friends as they navigate through the ‘other world' to get back home. also, really love the cover! reminds me of jeepers creepers.
I loved The Bear and the Nightingale, so I thought I would give this one a try. I really liked it. This is a creepy, fun middle grade story. I loved the atmosphere, and Ollie is a great character. I'm looking forward to the next one.
what a good middle grade horror novel. recommend to your under-thirteens who loved CORALINE and FIRESTARTER
More like 3.5. Small Spaces is solid middle grade horror, and thus a great October read. Ollie, our 11-year-old protagonist, stumbles upon a mystery; the kind all tangled up in local urban legends. She works to get to the bottom of said mystery during a field trip that really goes off the rails. I mean, it could not have gone more wrong. Small Spaces is suspenseful and reads quick. The cover is a good indication of the tone. Ollie's dad is great. I would have preferred first-person narration to third, but my biggest misgiving is the dead mom trope. Every time with the dead mom. Almost all of Ollie's character development relates directly to her mom's death, and it just feels like a cheap (and stale) way to flesh out the main character. Even so, I'm excited to read [b:the sequel 43069601 Dead Voices (Small Spaces #2) Katherine Arden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1555318304l/43069601.SY75.jpg 66864206].
I'm not a huge middle-grade reader but I enjoyed this a lot. This was cute and a little spooky. I really liked the atmosphere that this book has and the plot is very interesting especially for a spooky middle-grade book. I will definitely be picking up the next book in this series because its that good.
So finishing this in the dark was not a good idea! I thought it was a fun scary kids book, then it scared me. So very well done. And I love Ollie's family and friends. Wonderful!!
Small Spaces took me a minute to get into it, I'm not sure why, but once it got going I was hooked and in for the ride. A young girl finds a book that spins a ghost story about one dead brother and another that makes a pact with a “smiling man” to bring him back. Over a hundred years later, Ollie's class visits the farm where that pact was made and now her field trip becomes a nightmare in which she must save herself and her classmates from a nightmare. Honestly, it's fabulous.
It's less terrifying and more awe-inducing watching Ollie use old fashioned pluck to figure this out. Seriously, the Scooby gang would be mad impressed.
I guess I should go read Arden's other work now.