by Jason Arnopp

A Horror, 2016 by Orbit, 336 Pages

What I Didn’t Like:

Long chapters. Not really a huge issue but worth mentioning so you can mentally prepare yourself for long reading sessions with no breaks.
There are a lot of things thrown in that don’t make sense at first. Worse, they’re written in a way to make you think they’re errors at first, which is annoying. This gets you frustrated early on (inserts to the editor that are obviously not followed are one such example).
Jack is INCREDIBLY unlikeable. Is it relevant to the plot? Yes, so it will come up again as something I did like because it takes skill to write someone this awful. That, however, doesn’t make it any easier to read. He’s THE WORST.

Strongly disliked the main character right away but since that was intentional, I’ll call it a positive. You weren’t supposed to like him. That’s clear in the way his story is told right from the start. Also, don’t skip the chapter labeled introduction. It’s part of the story.
The different mediums dropped in add to the excitement of the story. They’re all meant to be “added after the fact” and sort of chip away at the reliability of our narrator. It’s a unique way to form this one and I love unique!
The ending works. No spoilers but I’ll say if you stick through the awful main character and the weird stuff going on, you won’t be disappointed.

Readers interested in House of Leaves but afraid of the depth of that puzzle. Or, similarly, readers who didn’t like House of Leaves but liked the CONCEPT of reading a book “written” posthumously following the author’s death to unravel a mystery they were obsessed with.

The ending really brought this one together in a pleasing way. Horror fans, give this one a read.