I liked this book. I think.
I liked how this book was written. I think.
I definitely wanted to read this book. That I know for a fact because when I picked it up at my local public library, I came home and discovered I already owned a copy I picked up at local thrift store.
This is actually my second Paul Tremblay book, but I think I liked that first one more. I am going to try to not be over-spoilery with my thoughts, but I don’t hold me to that.
I enjoyed the format of this book – here we go already with a slight spoiler. It’s written as a memoir that includes a character based on a person who has already read this memoir and has written notes throughout the book (in the margins and between chapters). I really liked that concept as a way for the author of the “memoir” to be possibly unreliable while the person leaving notes can call him out on it and attempt to set the record straight.
But which one of them is actually being truthful?
What I didn’t love all that much was the overly stylized writing where almost ever other sentence was filled with metaphors (I am not even sure I am using that term correctly) where even saying someone walked into a room was using as many words as possible.
Now maybe that’s a “me” thing, because it did slow down my reading and at times made things confusing. There were paragraphs where the narrator went off on a tangent that almost had nothing to do with what was going on in the moment but more what was going on inside his head.
But maybe that was the point? Was this a horror story with supernatural aspects or the story of a man with severe physical and mental health issues? Or both?
I would read another Paul Tremblay book in the future, even if it was just to compare the book to how I feel about it.
But when I say I liked it – I stop and say, did I? There were moments where I was totally into it and moments where I thought – I just want to get this over with. So I would say my thoughts were mixed, leaning slightly more positive. Kinda liked. Did not love.