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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
I really love this creepy series.
What really makes this book stand out for me was the humanization of the villain. Even though his motives were horrendous and dark, the reasons why behind those motives came to light toward the end, and our main characters even wanted to help.
I loved Ollie. She was strong, courageous and wonderfully written.
Favorite Quote:
"Sometimes his smiles were scary, and sometimes they were friendly, but they never meant what you thought they did."
I gave this book 4 our of 5 stars. It was wonderful and a quick read. Made it through in just a few hours. Would be a great read for a dark and stormy night.
Sara | Book Confessions of an ExBallerina | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
What really makes this book stand out for me was the humanization of the villain. Even though his motives were horrendous and dark, the reasons why behind those motives came to light toward the end, and our main characters even wanted to help.
I loved Ollie. She was strong, courageous and wonderfully written.
Favorite Quote:
"Sometimes his smiles were scary, and sometimes they were friendly, but they never meant what you thought they did."
I gave this book 4 our of 5 stars. It was wonderful and a quick read. Made it through in just a few hours. Would be a great read for a dark and stormy night.
Sara | Book Confessions of an ExBallerina | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
EMPTY SMILES was a fantastic ending to the "Small Spaces" series! Katherine Arden serves up plenty of chills and freak-out moments in the fourth book of her goosebump-inducing (literally) stories that feature the Smiling Man and the kids he's chosen to terrorize.
I don't do spoilers so if you haven't read any of the other books I'll only say that this one picks up after one of our main characters has been taken by the Smiling Man. The friends have been promised a chance to win their other friend back, but with this opportunity comes great risk at losing everyone else they love--their families!
All the kids, even our missing one, have to find the courage to stand up to the Smiling Man and figure out the scant clues they've given in order to escape from behind the mist and the twisted carnival that holds much more than rides, cotton candy, and questionable game prizes. The stakes have never been higher for Ollie, Brian, Coco, and Phil.
The SMALL SPACES quartet of middle grade books has been one of my favorite series that I've read in 2022 and I'm so glad I was able to conclude my year reading its final book -- EMPTY SMILES.
I don't do spoilers so if you haven't read any of the other books I'll only say that this one picks up after one of our main characters has been taken by the Smiling Man. The friends have been promised a chance to win their other friend back, but with this opportunity comes great risk at losing everyone else they love--their families!
All the kids, even our missing one, have to find the courage to stand up to the Smiling Man and figure out the scant clues they've given in order to escape from behind the mist and the twisted carnival that holds much more than rides, cotton candy, and questionable game prizes. The stakes have never been higher for Ollie, Brian, Coco, and Phil.
The SMALL SPACES quartet of middle grade books has been one of my favorite series that I've read in 2022 and I'm so glad I was able to conclude my year reading its final book -- EMPTY SMILES.
I love this series so much. Ollie and Brian and Coco have my whole heart. But look at the cover. LOOK AT IT. That cover doesn’t lie. Scarecrows? Scary but fine. Ghosts? Awesome. Haunted island with lake monsters? Great. But EVIL CLOWNS?
Ooooooooh how I wanted to give this a 5 stars. Soooo much of the book was soooo good. It had been awhile since I finished book 3 in the series so I had forgotten tha Ollie had given herself up so that her father could survive. So… this opens with Ollie having been missing for months. I won’t bother with a summary because there are others. But the horror genre elements were all there in full force. The only thing that made me remember it was a YA novel was the lack of gore. But there wasn’t any need for it because Katherine Arden just nails the imagery of clowns, clowns turning people into dolls, the carnival. All of it. It all works.
So…why not 5 stars? The ending. It destroyed me. It disappointed me. It made me disgruntled. So much of the book was such a fast paced, beautifully crafted horror story heading towards the final, ultimate battle between the Smiling Man and our trio. This is four books in the making. How does it end? In the penultimate chapter, Brian and Coco find Ollie in the funhouse. They follow the sound of music, fine the second key and boom. They’re back outside in front of the Smiling Man. The keys merge together and it forms the key to the gate out of the carnival and out of the Smiling Man’s machinations. Then the final chapter is them going home and all of the families are there and no one remembers anything….not even Ollie being missing for MONTHS and everything goes back to normal. Um. What?? Four books and the showdown is…nothing. No explanation about who the Smiling Man is. Nothing to explain his situation. So random hints about maybe he doesn’t want to be what he is. Now, maybe at some point we get an origin story for him. But for the grand final battle…it was so horribly disappointing and rushed.
Still a fantastic book for 95% of it, so that’s why it gets four stars.
So…why not 5 stars? The ending. It destroyed me. It disappointed me. It made me disgruntled. So much of the book was such a fast paced, beautifully crafted horror story heading towards the final, ultimate battle between the Smiling Man and our trio. This is four books in the making. How does it end? In the penultimate chapter, Brian and Coco find Ollie in the funhouse. They follow the sound of music, fine the second key and boom. They’re back outside in front of the Smiling Man. The keys merge together and it forms the key to the gate out of the carnival and out of the Smiling Man’s machinations. Then the final chapter is them going home and all of the families are there and no one remembers anything….not even Ollie being missing for MONTHS and everything goes back to normal. Um. What?? Four books and the showdown is…nothing. No explanation about who the Smiling Man is. Nothing to explain his situation. So random hints about maybe he doesn’t want to be what he is. Now, maybe at some point we get an origin story for him. But for the grand final battle…it was so horribly disappointing and rushed.
Still a fantastic book for 95% of it, so that’s why it gets four stars.
This was an amazing series from start to finish. The only concern I have. Is the previews at the end. The previews were for the previous books. Which found a little weird.
“The places where the world turns frightening, strange, sideways. That is where you will find me.”
I wanted to like the finale to this quartet more, but it just didn’t deliver. There were creepy moments for sure, but the last half of this book felt very rushed.
I still adore Arden and can’t wait to read The Bear and the Nightingale next!
I wanted to like the finale to this quartet more, but it just didn’t deliver. There were creepy moments for sure, but the last half of this book felt very rushed.
I still adore Arden and can’t wait to read The Bear and the Nightingale next!
Sorry but this was just a solid 3 stars. I think the biggest issue is that Arden tried to rewrite The Smiling Man and based on the first book in the quartet it never squared. We also didn't get a lot of time with our trio of Ollie, Coco, and Brian together. The ending also just felt very rushed. Finally, the whole book was pretty short. I got to the 80 something mark and the remaining part of the book was excerpts from the first three books.
"Empty Smiles" is the fourth and last book in the Small Spaces quartet. It's been a couple of months since Ollie did a deal with the Smiling Man and left her dad and friends. She's now on a train that never seems to stop with the Smiling Man and playing chess with him. When they do get to a stop, a carnival sets up that has dark secrets of its own. The Smiling Man keeps getting Ollie to agree to stay forever, but she wants to play the game with her friends getting a chance to save her. And back with Brian and Coco, all the adults believe that Ollie died. But Brian, Coco, and Phil, are at the ready to save Ollie when the chance comes. When a missing boy is found in water near them, it appears that The Smiling Man is setting up his final game for the kids to play.
So I think if anything this should have been Phil's story. Instead we follow Ollie, Brian, and Coco. With Phil kind of there and jealous about the friendship of the other three. And the adults are done with the kids hiding secrets. And there is some movement there with that, but not enough for me to give this higher than three stars. Also, bad guys can just be bad guys. It's something Stephen King understands quite well.
The writing was fine, but the book felt a bit like I was reading in place. Nothing much happens. We are supposed to have feelings or something for The Smiling Man and I was like why. I think the first book in the series was the best and everything else has been not even come close.
I thought the creepy carnival with scary clowns was quite scary, but how does this even line up with the secret places we found out The Smiling Man was involved with in three other books?
Finally, the ending was what honestly made me drop this thing down two stars. There's all this build up with no explanation about anything. Who is The Smiling Man? Why did he want to play games so badly? Why was he so fixated on Ollie? What happens with the other places/people he kidnapped and turned into whatever he did? Why did everyone but just four of the kids forget everything? I just legit when bah when I finished this installment. I don't know if Arden just didn't know how to finish this or what, but honestly this was a big disappointment.
"Empty Smiles" is the fourth and last book in the Small Spaces quartet. It's been a couple of months since Ollie did a deal with the Smiling Man and left her dad and friends. She's now on a train that never seems to stop with the Smiling Man and playing chess with him. When they do get to a stop, a carnival sets up that has dark secrets of its own. The Smiling Man keeps getting Ollie to agree to stay forever, but she wants to play the game with her friends getting a chance to save her. And back with Brian and Coco, all the adults believe that Ollie died. But Brian, Coco, and Phil, are at the ready to save Ollie when the chance comes. When a missing boy is found in water near them, it appears that The Smiling Man is setting up his final game for the kids to play.
So I think if anything this should have been Phil's story. Instead we follow Ollie, Brian, and Coco. With Phil kind of there and jealous about the friendship of the other three. And the adults are done with the kids hiding secrets. And there is some movement there with that, but not enough for me to give this higher than three stars. Also, bad guys can just be bad guys. It's something Stephen King understands quite well.
The writing was fine, but the book felt a bit like I was reading in place. Nothing much happens. We are supposed to have feelings or something for The Smiling Man and I was like why. I think the first book in the series was the best and everything else has been not even come close.
I thought the creepy carnival with scary clowns was quite scary, but how does this even line up with the secret places we found out The Smiling Man was involved with in three other books?
Finally, the ending was what honestly made me drop this thing down two stars. There's all this build up with no explanation about anything. Who is The Smiling Man? Why did he want to play games so badly? Why was he so fixated on Ollie? What happens with the other places/people he kidnapped and turned into whatever he did? Why did everyone but just four of the kids forget everything? I just legit when bah when I finished this installment. I don't know if Arden just didn't know how to finish this or what, but honestly this was a big disappointment.
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Katherine Arden, are you on drugs or something? Can you give me your editor's name so I can write a strongly-worded email suggesting they be fired immediately? There is NO ENDING to this book. I actually don't care that much about the Smiling Man's backstory or motivations. Psychopath's gonna psychopath. But it was way too easy for the kids to suddenly find the keys and get out in a rush in the last few pages. I thought it was going to be a dream, but it, sadly, was not. This is poor work. Whoever let this get published in its current state should be ashamed they ruined what could have been a great book. Obviously, we needed more about the dolls. Morgan, Tim, and Ruth all should have appeared at the end, finally free. Whole essential chunks of action are missing - HOW did they "follow the music"? HOW did Brian and Coco even get to the funhouse? WHAT DID I JUST READ???