Sometimes I go to my local library and pick a book the old fashioned way: by reading only what’s on the cover or inside flap. Maybe with a cursory glance inside to make sure the writing style works for me. I picked out 3 books that way recently. Here are brief reviews of several very different novels.
I’m glad I read each of these. But they’re probably not for every reader. Maybe one will intrigue you enough to pick it up.
Penpal by Dathan Auerbach
Genre: horror
My rating: 3 stars
I knew nothing about this book when I decided to give it a go. It follows a young boy going to school and exploring the woods near his home while being stalked in a series of bizarre and increasingly frightening incidents. This book has some real strengths, but also a few execution issues. I love the way the stories link and build on each other. There’s a definite sense of unease and suspense throughout each one, and my eyes were pretty well glued to the page to find out what came next. With a good editor, this could have been a 4 or 5 star read.
I’ve since learned important context about the book’s origins. It started as a creepypasta. In other words, a horror/thriller shared via online forums. I see why it excelled in that format. Each chapter functions as a standalone story that connects to the whole. It’s nonlinear, which I don’t mind, and it’s definitely creepy. A successful Kickstarter campaign resulted in this becoming a published book.
All that said, the writing could use some work. I think Auerbach used a thesaurus a lot. The word choice often felt distracting and unnatural. He also didn’t settle on a consistent narrative voice for each section of the timeline. Because of that, the main character’s age is somewhat difficult to track. Phrases and ideas sometimes repeat unnecessarily. The main characters could be more fleshed out, too. While the ending feels sufficiently climactic, readers don’t know much about the stalker by the end, and that feels unresolved.
Ideal Reader: I’d recommend this to someone who likes horror/thrillers, and also enjoys internet forum stories. Knowing this book’s origins made it that much more impressive. I think that’s the way to approach this: reading an exciting internet forum horror story without eyestrain. The original story from 1000 Vultures on r/nosleep can still be found on the Creepypasta wiki. I’m curious to explore that wiki now, both for comparison to the book, and to delve into other creepypastas. Thanks to Auerbach and Penpal for introducing the concept to me.
Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke
Genre: Humor/Speculative Fiction/Satire
My rating: 3 stars
What a wild ride! I couldn’t guess where it would go. This story is told entirely through slack chat messages, so there’s plenty of white space, and the pages breeze by. Gerald’s consciousness has been absorbed or uploaded into his office’s slack channels. He works for a PR firm that’s currently in the throws of handling a dog food fiasco (Pomeranians may have been poisoned!) But where is Gerald’s body? What do his coworkers think is really going on?
What I liked: I laughed out loud multiple times. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the slackbot character. The sunset. The dog food PR fiasco. I loved the Tripp/Beverly relationship side plot. There are things about this workplace that feel real and true about the corporate world. But the premise of someone’s consciousness getting trapped inside of Slack is absurd enough that those observations don’t feel heavy.
I frequently wished it emulated that chat medium more, with images. I know it’s a static page, but a thumbnail of a GIF would have been helpful in spots to confirm I’m imagining the correct meme, which had to be conjured solely from brief text descriptions. I’m sure there were cost and copyright issues to consider. Maybe this story would be better told through a more visual publishing medium. I also wish the thing with Lydia and the romance had been fleshed out more. Both felt sudden and unsettled. There’s a scene towards the end involving consent that I thought should have been handled with more seriousness. The resolution felt awfully hand-wavy to me. Maybe I’m taking it too seriously.
Who should read this? Someone who enjoys absurd humor and also likes office dramas. This is a great pairing of the two.
Remedy by Eireann Corrigan
Genre: YA, Contemporary Fiction
My rating: 5 stars
While I went into this book with no prior knowledge, a quick scan of the inside flap clued me in that this was likely a Munchausen-by-proxy story. With the relatively recent release of Gypsy-Rose Blanchard, that true story was somewhat fresh on my mind, and I thought a first-person account by a character experiencing this had merit, if executed well.
This was executed well. Cara Jean’s journey from “my mom is my biggest advocate” to “my mom is making me sick on purpose” had me on the edge of my seat. Her point of view was what sold this to me. Cara wants to stay in public school, but her absences from chronic illness make that difficult. The school is on her case. Her mom, who uses social media to help fund their medical expenses, wants to pull her out of school to homeschool her, but Cara longs to feel a sense of belonging, to escape the isolation of her absences. She wants to stay in school. Under the guise of worrying about her health, Cara’s mother discourages her from her education. But Cara is resilient. She sneaks off. She makes friends. She skips her meds.
She notices how frequently her mother lies. Her mother’s tendency to actively discourage her education and stop her from talking to adults like doctors and school administrators feels realistic, and because of the excellent POV writing, the reader understands why it’s been effective on Cara for so long. The other characters are also great. Even Libby Gilfeather, who is very much a minor character except in Cara’s head, plays an important role in Cara figuring out the realities of the world and her own life.
The only things I questioned were the walkability of her neighborhood and Xavier figuring out the Munchausen-by-proxy situation. His personality helped make that believable though. I couldn’t put this book down. This also touches on the realities of children on social media, a topic that craves further exploration in today’s world of oversharing.
Who should read this? Anyone, honestly. It really holds up. But I especially recommend this book to YA fans who enjoy contemporary fiction and medical dramas.
I’m always open to book recommendations. Have you stumbled upon a book and absolutely loved it? What’s your favorite way to find new things to read?
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