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ravensandlace's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
4.0
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A special thank you goes out to the author, Arthur Herbert, for sending me a copy of this book. Another thank you goes out to Blackthorn Book Tours for hosting this book tour. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I have been trying to get more into horror books and just the horror genre itself. It’s been an ongoing goal for me all year. As an avid lover of the horror genre, I surprisingly don’t read a lot of horror books. It’s not that I don’t want to read horror books, I simply just read other genres such as historical fiction. Luckily, since I joined up with Blackthorn Book Tours, they have been offering me a lot of horror options, which I have gladly taken advantage of.
I am so happy with this book, which is weird to say when it comes to a horror book. I stayed up way past my bedtime reading this book because I was that hooked on it. I had to know what was going on and I had to get to the bottom of the mystery that was Henry. The minute I read the first sentence, I had this absolute feeling of dread. I felt like something was going to happen, something bad, the whole time I read this book. Eventually, that feeling wasn’t as strong but it was ever present. I love books that have that feeling of dread. It’s a fun feeling, weirdly.
If you truly want to experience this book fully, I recommend listening to the song “Daywalker” by Machine Gun Kelly and Corpse Husband. That was the first thing I thought of while reading this book. It gives you an idea of being in Henry’s mind, one of the main characters. There was something just so very off about him but I still found myself rooting for him, in a strange way. My only complaint is that he didn’t get a lot of page time and I found his story ended quickly. I wanted more of Henry and I wanted to see more of what he was capable of.
Alex was another main character and was more of the focus of the book. I enjoyed his point of view as he led quite an interesting life. I found myself rooting for him even though he made some pretty questionable choices and ultimately made his life harder than it needed to be. But that aside, he was a great and complex character.
Overall, this is such a creepy book. It reminded me of Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky, with the way the atmosphere was built. The main characters were complex and fun to read about. There was a plot but this book is definitely more character driven, which I think worked better. Overall, if you enjoy the horror genre with complex characters, then this is the book for you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Alcohol