The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers in exchange for an honest review.

The Caretaker is a great example of a horror story where the scale is handled right. It tells the story of Macy Mullins, a girl on the brink of bankruptcy who is struggling to support her and her sister after the death of their father. Macy gets offered a housesitting job where all she has to do is follow a peculiar set of instructions and she'll be paid a crazy amount of money. But what happens if she slips up?

I really enjoyed the general atmosphere, pacing and writing style of this book. The tone hit a good balance of being creepy but clear, and I found Macy to be a fairly interesting protagonist. Her situation was heartbreakingly believable and I never found myself confused by her actions or attitudes to what she was doing,

Having said that, the problems kind of came in the latter half of the book. Whilst the story remained compelling and well-written, I began to find Macy a bit frustrating as a character. Horror books rely on suspense and suspense is killed both by a character being too competent and by a character being too incompetent. Without giving too much away, I felt Macy's actions became very repetitive and this killed some of the believability and investment for me. I think balancing her successes vs her failures more would have kept me more on my toes and my interest going.

Overall, The Caretaker is an interesting horror book and one I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I did find moments of it genuinely creepy and scary, I just wish the story had changed things up a bit in the second half. I recommend checking it out if you're looking for a unique twist on 'isolation horror' but I also think this author has some room to grow and I am excited to see what they do in the future

Overall Rating:

3.5/5 stars

I Know a Place by Nat Cassidy

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and Shortwave Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

This book was off to a promising start with the opening novella but unfortunately the rest of the stories were a bit hit and miss for me. I'll go through some of my favourites and then talk about some of the ones I didn't like.

Rest Stop: This is a novella about a man who stops at a gas station to use the bathroom on a long journey and gets trapped inside. Then things get increasingly worse. I am hesitant to say too much about the plot because I was pretty gripped by the uncertainty in this one but I found it went in such a unique direction and I think it will stick with me for a long time.

Run For Your Life: A man goes back in time and replaces the Beatles. This was a super interesting and fairly detailed story. I think I would have liked this expanded into a novella as well but I really enjoyed it as it stands.

Jubilee Juncture: A failing children's entertainer begs his friend for one last chance as he shows him his new ventriloquist puppet. This was a little predictable but deliciously dark and had some interesting ideas.

Nice: A boy gets a visit from Santa's elf who begs him to be naughty this year. Another story which was a little predictable but it made up for it in creativity.

Come: What if the girl from the Ring didn't kill you in seven days but instead when you did...something else? This was actually a very intriguing premise and again, almost had novella potential.

Stories I enjoyed less: Meet Cute #1 The Unluckiest Girl (too predictable and nothing but the twist), The Art of What You Want (honestly a little transphobic almost?) and A Fruiting Body (not a short story).

Overall, the writing style was enjoyable and I am glad I read this anthology. I would read more by this author but I think I would stick to their longer stuff as they have some really good core ideas, they just needed fleshing out a little.

Overall Rating:

3.5/5

Whatever Happened to Madeline Stone? by Louise O'Neill

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers  in exchange for an honest review.

Whatever Happened to Madeline Stone? tells the story of Chelsea Stone, an ex-child actor who is now struggling with her adult life. Chelsea used to act with her identical twin sister Madeline but they grew apart when Chelsea beat her for a key role and Madeline went off the rails. Now Madeline has disappeared and Chelsea is left wondering what happened to her sister.

Louise O'Neill has a talent for writing stories which tackle the difficult aspects of being a woman and I was looking forward to her take on child stars. Unfortunately, I kind of felt this book was about the wrong twin. Chelsea is an interesting character but her main purpose as the protagonist is to allow for the mystery of what happened to Madeline to drive the story. In terms of the biting social commentary and emotional grit that I love in O'Neill's work, Madeline would have made for a much better main character. Instead of getting a close look at the darker side of child stardom, these dark aspects are experienced second hand by the narrator. This means that a lot of the emotional gut punches are muted and don't quite land.

Putting that aspect aside, the general plot is a little messy too. It took me longer to get into this book than it normally does with O'Neill's work and I think that's partially due to the mismatch between the present day plot and the flashbacks. The present day plot flirts with being a thriller but stays solidly as a contemporary drama. Neither plotline fully explores its events either and this combines with the problem mentioned above to weaken the story further. A good example of this is the twin's mother, Erin Stone. She is a complex and interesting character to explore and yet she is a little sidelined and the emotional payoff of her story never really makes it to the surface.

Overall, I did enjoy this book and I really admire what it was trying to do. I think it was a bit messier and a bit less emotionally impactful than I have come to expect from the author. I also suspect that the marketing may draw in some thriller audiences who will be disappointed. If you want a thoughtful exploration of the exploitation of women, I think O'Neill's other books are unfortunately a better pick

Overall Rating:

3.5/5 stars