This book was extremely not for me, which I recognize, and why I'm giving it a 3-star rating instead of a 2, just in case I'm overly harsh.

I find the book meanspirited in tone, which is hard to grapple with since one of the main characters is, in my opinion, deeply relatable. Stevie's story is much more grounded than Rosie's, and I think many more people will be able to relate to him. It's for this reason the conclusion to his story disappoints me:

I don't think the downer, punishment ending he gets for being a child trying his best is warranted or, honestly, even realistic. To me, it's not even a matter of living in a crapsack world, the story seems to be actively punishing him for existing. If the answer is that trying your best isn't good enough and nothing you do will ever amount to anything, then that's just not a satisfying ending to his arc. If the answer is that he was imagining it all and he's that much of an unreliable narrator, then it wasn't clear enough in the text. If the answer is his family is willing to put away a 10 yr old after seeing him act in self defense with their own eyes and after hearing him endlessly try to tell them something is wrong...then that's not satisfying either. Or, it wasn't wrapped up well enough to make it satisfying.

I feel Rosie's chapters adds nothing to the story. It doesn't expand the mystery is an interesting or satisfying way (and in fact, I found Rosie got in the way of the mystery, considering I immediately drew a connection it took her canonically 30 years to piece together). I think the purpose of Rosie's chapters were to add an aspect of specifically gendered horror

by way of The Omen and like, commenting on the deep horror of being a single mom and childbirth in general.

This is a topic that I personally hate to read about, but also a topic I think adds nothing to the story.

My biggest criticism of the book is the really pessimistic and judgemental view of women it takes. There are essentially four named women in the book (out of an admittedly small cast), and all of them, notably, only exist in relation to the (terrible) men and boys in their lives.

Dunc's girlfriend basically only exists for us to have a scene of her happily getting fingered next to a child. Stevie's mom exists to get beat up, fingered next to her child, and/or let her children get beat up too. Rosie spends her entire time obsessed with her husband before and after his death, then covering for her clearly-a-demon son. Mandy entire identity is having a dead husband and then a kidnapped son. And that one old woman spends her time asking policemen to aresst a 10 year old.

I don't mean to be dismissive, but when there's clearly gendered violence happening in a story I prefer it to serve a greater purpose. There doesn't seem to serve a greater purpose here, it just feels like the conclusion we're meant to reach is that women are always going to be obsessed with their lovers/let terrible men "get away with" terrible behavior. I don't think this is what the author intended, but I'm struggling to find another interpretation.

I thought this book started off pretty strong. Our child narrator is pretty unreliable, but he's also trying his best to find his friend. The author does a good job painting a pretty unsettling picture of Deer Valley and its inhabitants. Stevie is neglected as his mother doesn't ever get him psychiatric help, his stepfather Terry is abusive, and the older brother Duncan ignores him. His only friend is his cousin Jude, so of course Stevie is going to try to go find him when he goes missing, even if everyone else thinks he ran away.

Eventually, Jude comes home, but he comes back different. After he returns, the story cuts to Rosamund, Ansel, and Otto. This story had promise at first, but soon it's pretty much just Rosemary's Baby. It felt like it could've been interesting and had a lot of potential. There were unique elements. I liked the bit with the animals and the first attack and then the resulting changed behavior where the animals become enthralled with Otto. Or, enslaved rather. Poor Sasha. It got hard reading about all these dead animals and pets with Rosie keeping the collars in a desk drawer. It's upsetting and doesn't do much to further the story. We know Otto is a bad guy, we're about to find out he murdered a kid. And not just murdered, but apparently ate Maxwell Larsen. Meanwhile, the Deadhead guy is our 1:1 with the Satanist neighbors from Rosemary's Baby, only now it's Rosamund's Baby. From the second he asked Rosie what she wanted and what she'd do, I knew it was game over. But the author doesn't let us stew in that dread for very long until Ansel dies and we know, alright that's cuz of Ra-Ra-Rasputin (AKA Deadhead). I didn't care a whole lot about Otto's story and even how Rosemary changed could've been interesting if the whole "she wants to leave but he's basically enchanted her" angle was leaned into more, but I also would've wanted the story to stay with Stevie instead. After this, the story kind of falls apart. So, Jude comes back and he's weird and wrong, but nobody will listen to Stevie about it. The story at end tries to lean into "Was it all imagined? Is Stevie just crazy?" but having Rosie's chapters means we already know it all happened. There's some gore and scares, but honestly? I don't think it really worked. Stevie killing Jude didn't seem earned. The big fight at the end with all of them is fine, but it wasn't a great conclusion. It felt like a bit of a let down to just go okay, here's years later. We also never get a real conclusion to Jude. He's gone and stays gone, appearing to be kind of allergic to sunlight like Otto except then he's dead so we'll never know. I felt like unanswered questions are fine, but not if what we're focusing on isn't as interesting. Honestly, I'm not sure how I would have ended it. An unhappy ending is fine, but this one felt like a cop-out.

 This was pretty good! I don't feel like it was particularly memorable or like I'll have a lot to say about it when I type up a review, but it was a solid introduction to Ania Ahlborn's work and I'm looking forward to picking up another story of hers soon!

✨ Representation: disabled protagonist (missing multiple fingers) with an undiagnosed mental illness (implied schizophrenia) and Tourette's