Not gonna lie. I was really close to DNF-ing at about the 50-60% mark. The beginning is great. The first 2.5 chapters came out swinging with intrigue and a cool fairytale retelling. Chapters 3-5 grinded the story to a halt for me. Don is not very interesting to me, but there was sooo much pointless exposition and character backstories that don't really add up to anything in the long run. It's very well written, and I enjoy his prose, but I was zoning out sooo hard during those sections. The world is clearly very fleshed out, which is awesome, but with the lack of larger impact and descriptions of like the neighborhood that lasted forever, it lost me. Especially since there was a lack of spookyness. Moments now and then but few and far between. The last third when things ramp up and get spooky was great and made it a 3 overall for me. Really enjoyed the back half and the lore of Old Leech. It just took too long to get there for me.

Unsettling and terrifying, to the point where I restricted myself to reading it during my commutes to work and not alone in bed at night. It's my first read from Barron, so while I may have missed some of the complex narrative connections to his other stories, it didn't detract from the experience one bit.

This is cosmic horror done right. Definitely recommended for the horror fan who wants a book to unnerve them and then some.

I dunno...

I own most of Barron's books, but haven't gotten around to reading any yet. This one was free with Audible, so I just decided to listen to it instead. I wish I hadn't because I feel like I would have enjoyed this story more if I had read the physical copy. I liked the concept of the book. The narration was not very engaging though, so I ended up feeling a bit bored.

I'd say about 2/3 of this book was decent, and I'm not sure if that was just by comparison.

It starts strong. I was hooked immediately. however, the middle 1/3 just plain lost me in its tedium. That section felt like a huge, unearned infodump. I didn't care about the characters enough to follow it well.