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A review by inkedwxtchreads
All Hallows by Christopher Golden
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I want to start by saying this is actually a kind of generous 4 stars and I know lots of people won’t enjoy it. I can see this book being really polarizing because people are going to go into this expecting lots of Halloween themed goodness, and not the drama from domestic thrillers x 10. But it does call itself a drama, so to me it at least seems self aware!
I’d say this is about 75% neighborhood drama that just happens to take place on Halloween and 25% the cunning man and halloween horror/atmosphere the book describes on the inside flap. It takes a while before the cunning man or the kids in the description are even mentioned, and even once they are there are still quite a few chapters before anything regarding them gets very interesting. I know a lot of people won’t like that.
But idk, as someone who is avoidant of drama, I just really love reading about it in books. There were times it was a little redundant, I do admit. Like the pacing was definitely off. But I still just ate it up.
If you don’t like families falling apart, cheating, and just general drama you for sure will hate this book though. If you have the same guilty pleasure that I do because you try to not indulge in drama in your real life though….. you may really like it!
Sometimes there are topics brought up like race and lgbtq that were represented kind of questionably or just plain out not well. Those moments are very brief but I think ultimately there is a little nuance since the person being the slime ball in those situations does end up with consequences. I feel like it could have still done better despite that, but ultimately it’s up to the reader and own voices to decide how they feel. Some moments made me feel a little weird, but it didn’t read as the authors own thoughts or feelings, so I’m not sure how to feel overall, especially with those moments not being huge parts of the story.
With the drama there are lots of touchy subjects brought up. Please read content warnings!
There are a lot of POVs similar to ‘the spite house’ by Johnny Compton if you know what I mean. In that one I didn’t love all of the perspectives but in this one I didn’t mind it at all.
The second part of the book does get spooky, and I did like what the cunning man ended up being. I would have liked things expanded on a bit, but that comes down to pacing. If you like atmosphere while it isn’t strong, it’s definitely there and this would make a great Halloween read! Lots of descriptions of fall and Halloween props and costumes. I loved that little taste of Halloween in the spring/summer!
I think I just liked a lot of the scenes with the weird kids and the actual cunning man himself, coupled with the drama, enough to overlook some of the flaws this book has for now.
I like how it ended for the most part as well. I thought the cunning man was a unique take on a monster, or at the very least, his motivations were unique.
I may lower this to a 3 star later, but for now I did enjoy this guilty pleasure read! I think all in all I was just entertained and had lots of fun. It was messy and spooky. And I just was here for it.
I’d say this is about 75% neighborhood drama that just happens to take place on Halloween and 25% the cunning man and halloween horror/atmosphere the book describes on the inside flap. It takes a while before the cunning man or the kids in the description are even mentioned, and even once they are there are still quite a few chapters before anything regarding them gets very interesting. I know a lot of people won’t like that.
But idk, as someone who is avoidant of drama, I just really love reading about it in books. There were times it was a little redundant, I do admit. Like the pacing was definitely off. But I still just ate it up.
If you don’t like families falling apart, cheating, and just general drama you for sure will hate this book though. If you have the same guilty pleasure that I do because you try to not indulge in drama in your real life though….. you may really like it!
Sometimes there are topics brought up like race and lgbtq that were represented kind of questionably or just plain out not well. Those moments are very brief but I think ultimately there is a little nuance since the person being the slime ball in those situations does end up with consequences. I feel like it could have still done better despite that, but ultimately it’s up to the reader and own voices to decide how they feel. Some moments made me feel a little weird, but it didn’t read as the authors own thoughts or feelings, so I’m not sure how to feel overall, especially with those moments not being huge parts of the story.
With the drama there are lots of touchy subjects brought up. Please read content warnings!
There are a lot of POVs similar to ‘the spite house’ by Johnny Compton if you know what I mean. In that one I didn’t love all of the perspectives but in this one I didn’t mind it at all.
The second part of the book does get spooky, and I did like what the cunning man ended up being. I would have liked things expanded on a bit, but that comes down to pacing. If you like atmosphere while it isn’t strong, it’s definitely there and this would make a great Halloween read! Lots of descriptions of fall and Halloween props and costumes. I loved that little taste of Halloween in the spring/summer!
I think I just liked a lot of the scenes with the weird kids and the actual cunning man himself, coupled with the drama, enough to overlook some of the flaws this book has for now.
I like how it ended for the most part as well. I thought the cunning man was a unique take on a monster, or at the very least, his motivations were unique.
I may lower this to a 3 star later, but for now I did enjoy this guilty pleasure read! I think all in all I was just entertained and had lots of fun. It was messy and spooky. And I just was here for it.