This was a better than average Halloween horror story, with a wide range of characters and a great sense of time and place. The 80s setting didn't mean much to me, but the Halloween atmosphere was well realised. The message about the casual and mundane cruelty of human beings being more frightening than any ghost or goblin, and the pain of nostalgia, came across effectively. The liminal/transitional space theme was interesting; the literal liminal space that the horrors travel through and the transitions from childhood to adulthood, loneliness to companionship and vice versa, and friendships to something else, were nicely paralleled. It was spooky, seasonal, and easy to whip through on an Autumn night. I wish I'd gotten around to reading it closer to the day itself!