gabbyreads 's review for:

The Bright Lands by John Fram

5.0

---

The more I think about this book the more I want to rave about this book. I finished this a few days ago now and I've been trying to figure out how to voice my thoughts on this. This is a horror/mystery/thriller novel about a gay man named Joel who is currently living in New York when he hears news of his younger brother going missing in the small conservative town in Texas where he is from. He decides to go back to this small town, and when he does, the horror begins.

I loved the tone of this book, it felt like a thriller novel because you spend a lot of time trying to figure out what happened to Dylan and there's a lot of mystery there. You are following many POV's which could get overwhelming but I kept a list of characters in my notebook to keep track of who was who. One of the main characters is a female sheriff and you follow along with her as she tries to find out exactly what happened to Dylan. I also love the atmosphere in this book it has these creepy small town claustrophobic vibes and all the main characters are football players and cheerleaders and it's very high school but not in the juvenile way that I usuallu can't stand. Each POV was so compelling and interesting.

I was surprised by the amount of social commentary in this book about many important things like toxic masculinity in sports, especially sports like football, and the corruption of the local police and how they are cruel and unfair to gay people or Black people. I love when a horror book can feel extra scary because of how real it feels, and how much it mirrors our own society and this book definitely does that. Each one of these characters felt real to me, and the horror they experience really jumps off the page.

The ending of this book is where it started to lose me a bit as I was reading it. It feels like a completely different book to be honest, and I was having a hard time getting on board with it and I was mostly confused. However, after I finished this book I looked up a bunch of interviews with the author and theories other people have on the ending (and you know I love a book that provokes discussion) and I was AMAZED by what I found. It honestly just made me love the book even more to be able to discuss the ending with other people and figure out what they think it all means. I found a comment from the author about the ending that blew my mind, it said:

"Bosheth is a metaphor for the atavistic horror of our current President, a monster that a group of aging white elites think they can use to maintain their abusive power only to watch it consume them." I literally never thought of it that way and now I feel like I need to reread the ending to discover a whole new meaning. I love that so much, and it's totally true, because since Trump became President it has allowed people to think it's okay to spew their hatred and racism because he does it and he is literally the vessel of hate that needs to be severed so it stops infecting everyone. I just thought that was so deep and impressive. I also found this comment from Wendy Walker, nother thriller author who I like and she said this about the ending: "The ending is metaphorical, the dark hole that swallows everyone represents to me the darkness inside of us that grows when we repress who we truly are, or oppress others with our positions of power and authority" and I was pretty shook by that as well. I love a good metaphor and the ending is one giant metaphor and I am here for it.

So after some more thought, I'm giving this book 5 stars. I haven't been able to stop thinking about this book since I finished reading it, and I love that. A lot of people are saying this is like Stephen King but gay, and I mostly agree with that. It definitely has that Stephen King horror kind of vibe going. But I wish there were more books like this, an ownvoices gay horror book! I can't wait to see what John Fram writes in the future, he is a super talented writer and I am obsessed with this debut novel.