Reviews

Commodore by Philip Fracassi

craigmatthews87's review

4.0

Fracassi is one of my favourite authors these days, and he's written another winner here. The premise - young friends go in search of a black car deep in a junkyard, a car they've heard countless stories and rumours about - may sound very King-esque, but he puts his own twist on it here. A great novella.

georgesreads's review

4.0

In Phil we trust

untitledlullaby's review

4.0

A interesting novella. The writing and story seems to come out exactly like a goosebumps and I think that’s what it should have been. It just missed some depth. Because of this though it was also easy and a quick read.

onetrackmind77's review

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

fmacarthy's review

adventurous dark emotional sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

bookish_satty's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book is awesome even if it's less than 100 pages. I really felt connected to Foster and Jim so much which made me read it in 2 hours (2 am to 4 am) and sacrifice a full night of sleep because I just couldn't put it down without knowing what happened.
Let me caution you before you pick this book up because this story is brutal even though this is a coming of age novel. Don't go into this hoping for a happy ending like I did because that ending shocked me as well as made me emotional.
I loved the author's writing style so much. It's not flowery but it's not juvenile either.
The pacing was fast and the story was entertaining and suspenseful throughout, there weren't any down moments.
Gothic by Philip Fracassi is one of my most anticipated releases of 2023. I'm so pumped to jump into that soon. 

thomaswjoyce's review

5.0

A very quick read, but Fracassi does mention in the afterword that he has plans to expand on the setting of Sabbath and, after this latest visit, I can't wait.
I really enjoyed the balance Fracassi struck between developing his characters in a relatable way, while having them experience just some of the nightmares hidden just below the surface of their seemingly quaint town. He hints at some of the horrors, leaving us to imagine the depth of the history of the town. Things like what it is that lives in the lake, and the angel-like being toward the end, who is anything but angelic.
I also enjoyed the tension created by the "ticking" motif utilised throughout, just before the mysterious car does what it does.
A joyous reading experience for fans of weird, dread-filled horror.

drewcox's review

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

octavia_cade's review

dark fast-paced

3.0

I read a short fiction collection by Fracassi a couple of days ago and thought it was excellent, so I went straight on to this. I didn't realise, going in, that Commodore was set in the same creepy small town of Sabbath that one of the stories in the collection was also set in, but given I enjoyed that story, that was a nice surprise. On balance, though, I didn't enjoy the novella as much as the collection. I just don't find stories about cars that fascinating, even if they are creepy, and although I realise that the car here wasn't really a car - it just drew in victims by pretending to be a car, much as an anglerfish uses light to lure in its prey - I still couldn't get into it much. The characterisation that stood out so much in the collection is a little more absent here, as well, in favour of a series of weird and lethal settings that were somewhat disconnected from each other. So as a whole, although I liked it well enough (and would certainly read more Sabbath stories), I didn't love it.