A review by lilmooniex
Penpal by Dathan Auerbach

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Spoiler filled description/summary: 

The steady thrum of listening to your own heartbeat reminded the main character of footsteps as he fell asleep as a 6 year old. Due to the feeling of someone running after him when he closed his eyes, he always imagined different scenarios, a wolf chasing him, a random pursuer, it didn't matter it always resulted and meant that everyone else was dead in the world. It caused a fear of being out after dark. Due to him having an older elevated home he worried about monsters being under his home in hidden crawl spaces, a normal 1st grade thing to do, of course. The main character (still don't know their name at this point) also had a bunk bed in their room and often times woke up on the opposite bed (top bunk vs bottom bunk or vise versa) without any recollection of why or how he managed to swap beds. He brushes it off to waking up at night to get water and lying down in the wrong bed in a sleepy haze, one time instead of the bunk he was in the woods instead. After realizing it just might not be a dream afterall, he's met with the confusion of the woods not belonging to the one beside his own home and he is COMPLETELY lost. Thorns blocked his blocked path, no particular route made for him as he blindly makes his way home at 6 years old. He learned there had to be a way out of the woods from his grandPop months before after learning about riddles. He heard a wailing in the woods from a baby after stepping on a loud twig that quieted the other insects, later unsure of whether it was a cat or not in heat in his old age. He ran and ended right back to the beginning where he had woken up, very very lost. He bruised his feet walking in thorns, bark, and whatever else was on the ground from the woods, now walking with a limp as he made his way out from following a star. He found his way home shortly after. All the lights were on in the house proving mom was worried, right as he was going to turn the doorknob he was lifted away by arms covered in fur, his fear for monsters may not have been inaccurate after all. Things are beginning to get weirder, it wasn't a monster it was his mom grabbing him and a police officer at the door. She grabbed him because she found a note in his room of him running away, and he has no recollection of any of it. He is firm in his mind he did NOT write the letter, his name was even misspelled. They had a balloon project where they would write a note on the balloon and let it fly into the wind, whoever found the balloon would be their penpal. After taking his time and writing out his penpal letter one day his teach had given him a package in return from his penpal, inside the package was a polaroid that looked as if it was from the desert and it could not be made out by his eye while on the outside of the envelope was a picture of a boy holding a balloon, much like the photo he drew himself. No letter response, which disappointed the boy greatly. Weeks later he got another letter, a polaroid this time of a building, the light gleaming off the camera and the building together. After the incident they ended up getting a snow cone machine and began selling it to strangers with his friend Josh. (an incident caused him to cut his finger in the snow cone blade as he pulled it out but business still resumed.) His mom took his snow cone machine away weeks later because of him getting hurt which he and I both find odd, very delayed reaction.  At some point, the young boy finally put all the polaroids all together from his penpal to where he could distinguish what they were, he realized he was in every single photo whether it was a small part of him or his complete face in the background - he was there. Later he explained to his mom what happened with the balloon project and how is dollar came back to him that said "for stamps" that basically meant the person who was taking pictures of him had gone to get snow cones at his stand. The last photo he received in the mail (which his mom opened first) alarmed her so much as it showed him and Josh up close at the snow stand. His mom realized there was no postage and called back the police. They had gotten a cat named Boxes the same day the boy had climbed the tree outside and broken his arm to where his bone poked out of his skin. They left quickly without even being able to alert Josh (he was meant to come over for the day) all after his mom had to go under the crawl space after their cat had run under their house. It scared her so bad they were moving immediately after she had gone under there. After the move his mom gave him a walkie talkie and Josh was on the other line, that way they can turn it on and communicate throughout the day without a cellphone. They used the walkie talkies everywhere, across the city at their homes, at each other's homes, and in the woods. His cat Boxes ran away. The boy was getting noticeably upset as the weeks went by and Boxes still hadn't made his way home, him and Josh decided to sneak out in the middle of the night and go to their old home before they moved - in case boxes made his way back to the wrong home. They went through the thick woods to head to the boy's old house. The story got weirder as Josh asked the same question years before that he was asked," how far into the woods can you go?" it caused a weirdness to go through both him and me.   Josh then found the place that the boy woke up in by a pool, the one from the beginning of the story. The boy then fell into the hole, a hole he NEVER remembered from that area. Josh was trapped in the pool area covered in spiders that was all over the pool float, he didn't realize at first and scrambled, needing help out of the pool. They played rock paper scissors and the main boy is the clear loser, needing to go under the house to see if Boxes is there. Josh went into the house instead causing them to split up and Josh to put up the board under the house so if Boxes is under the house he won't run around the streets away from either of them. It also causes the boy to be locked in. The boy noticed cat food was in bowls under the house, indicating someone had been luring Boxes under the house. They used the walkie talkies to communicate from the house to under the home, Josh told him inside his old clothes were no longer in the box and were hanging up. He also said the room was filled with polaroids of himself saying the boy had quite the ego that was right before the walkie talkie went quiet. Josh realized someone was in the house with him and struggled to get away, his strap to his walkie talkie got stuck on the house as they ran back into the woods. It's beginning to get crazy tense at this point. After speaking with his mom he found out they left early because the man had been LIVING under their house - the hell! Along with the dead creatures he had lured under there. The sound of boxes voice came from the walkie talkie under the boy's bed, the walkie talkie Josh had left at his old home. Mrs. Maggie was a neighbor that lived pretty close by to the boy - I'm wondering if she was the little stalker or if it's her kid. She is 80 and has dementia (guessing w/ context clues of her forgetting or just being old) so it is definitely not her. Josh and the boy always declined her invitation when she asked them to come over or even offered them food. So one day she bought them both a pool floaty that they took turns blowing up - a shark pool floaty, the one from the abandoned pool that the boy kept waking up near. Mrs. Maggie's husband Tom died on the front lawn while exercising to get in good enough shape to take her on her dream vacation to Rome due to her mental health declining - he wanted her to be able to remember and go while coherent, his heart wasn't that good and he died in the process. Tom and Maggie had two kids Chris and John and I think one of them for sure had something to do with the balloon. The boy and Josh went back out into the woods to finish their map that they made, as they heard footsteps in the woods a voice responded back to their "hello" with one of their own. They raced through the woods to find it was only a deer and at some point ended up encountering Mrs. Maggie. The boy tried to go into her house to get a towel from hopping in the lake near the woods but she denied him for the first time, knowing she had been constantly trying to get the two boys into her home. The boy knew while he was in the river the map he and Josh had made of the woods had washed away, but in the house when he checked his pockets of the pants he had put to the side while they were in the water he noticed the map was there - picture of two stick figures,  a smaller one and a bigger one - it had the young boy's intial's right next to the smaller one. I guess Mrs. Maggie wasn't the suspicious one because she ended up dying and the boy didn't realize til years later why a hazard team was taking out black bags from her home and they haven't seen her since. The boy then made a new friend when he couldn't see Josh named Alex and they became the new friend group with a guy named Chris. Josh and the MC saw eachother less frequently after that night they snuck out together but he still thought Josh's sister Veronica was beautiful. Chris got jealous of Josh while talking to the MC, wondering how he knew Veronica. After the mom found out that MC was trying to go to the movies with Veronica, her smile dropped and she declined letting him go. Josh's main phone number had changed but the MC's mom said that Josh's dad called previously to update the phone books and to see if their number is the same, wondering if the mom is sus of it their friendship really just fizzled. MC asked to get dropped off at Chris's home instead and would walk the rest of the way to 

car following to theater they met up and hit it off completely. The age difference was kind've crazy MC 15 and Veronica 17 or 18 as a senior. After the movie theater MC went to take a pee behind the theater as it was a midnight screening Veronica was hit by a car. He visited her in the hospital and she told him about them thinking Josh had run away, after he left her she texted him that she didn't want him to show back up at the hospital and seeing her that way, needing a little space while she heals. They began to text more while healing and then she texted him to meet her at the hospital 

meet veronica at the movie theater redo date. Veronica did not show up, she had been too badly bruised the last time they saw each other. A man who breathed heavily sat in the seat Veronica was meant to sit in instead, which he found super weird. MC's mom told him when he got home that Veronica had died THE DAY he visited and no way had it been her that texted him. She even said that the phone had been lost so they had no clue where it was. There were pictures sent to the MC's phone he couldn't receive because he had an old phone, so he'll never know what was sent completely. He got one last message from "Veronica" saying,"see you again soon." Josh and the MC met in kindergarten and he signed his cast after he had broken it falling from the tree. After the night they tried to find Boxes it seemed like their friendship progressively fizzled and no one tried to fix it. Something's off with this book, they keep mentioning that the MC and Josh look alike, wondering if something happened and they switched places. Josh decided to come to MC's 12th birthday after originally declining the offer. At the party Josh said "you left" after MC asked what happened to them and why it's suddenly so awkward when he's around. Josh had said he had trouble sleeping because of sleep walking and that was the last time he had seen Josh. Josh and the man that were taking polaroids were found in a hole, the hole from the beginning of the woods exploration that the MC fell in. It ended with them figuring out that Josh had been abducted years before although everyone thought he had run away at the time. He got abducted while in the woods they usually explored because Josh wanted to give the MC an actual birthday gift. The guy that abducted him thought of course he looked a lot like the MC, he had a picture of the MC in his pocket. He had kept Josh for years since that day and it seemed like he tried to escape one day as the kidnapper seemed as though he may have been attempting to finally kill Josh and Josh had bit him in the neck, but the guy had fallen on top of him as he struggled since it was a small hole he fell on top of Josh and suffocated him. Josh was probably in the car the day Veronica had gotten hit before he almost disposed of. Josh's dad basically buried his own son, he was given $100 by a man to fill a hole late at night, he was already going to do it so he took the money and basically did a half assed job not completely looking into the hole at what was going on as it had been too dark after 8pm in the woods. He couldn't completely see and everything was VERY fresh body wise. The story ended with him getting all the answers about his childhood except he didn't know WHY he had gotten kidnapped the one night and ended up in the woods but the guy didn't take him. He only took Josh instead so I'll never have complete answers. I know people fizzle apart but I'm surprised he didn't ask more questions about Josh sooner. All and all MC was a shitty friend, barely saved him in the woods once and didn't look for his friend for like two years.  

• This book honestly gave me a thrill. It was a nice short read, I swear I loved the spicy Penpal book and saw this book by accident (added it to my list) and I am NOT disappointed. It had the right level of thrill, a short read, and had me wanting to BINGE to get to the end. I honestly recommend to anyone that wants a thriller that actually makes you feel cautious at times because it can ACTUALLY happen! This book honestly made me cry at a 53% due to that mini backstory not sure if it's my period or this book but first book that made me cry in a while LOL. The back and forth between flashbacks and current really drive me crazy but I love the author's comparison to childhood and life going in "segments" to your memory. 4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️