Author: Dathan Auerbach
Genre: Horror/Mystery
Pages: Oversize paperback, 238
Publisher: 1000Vultures
ISBN: 978-0-9855455-0-5
Opening Lines: "When I was younger, I took a job at a deli that had what the owner called an 'ice cream buffet.' On Thursdays, children would get a free ice cream cone with their meals, and they could pick any one of the fifteen flavors we had."."
Rating
"In an attempt to make sense of his own mysterious and unsettling childhood memories, a man begins to reconstruct his past. As the games and adventures of his youth become engulfed by a larger story, he finds that it forms a tapestry of unbelievable horror that he never could have expected.
"Each chapter completes a different piece of the puzzle for both you and the narrator, and by the end of it all, you will wish you could forget what he never knew."
~ Jacket copy
Honestly, I have been in the mood for a good horror story. After really enjoying NOS4A2, I decided to see what Amazon recommended based on that book. This was one of the books near the top of the list. Not even sure what I was getting myself into, I decided to ILL it through my local library.
The jacket copy does a better job explaining it than I ever could! This is one of those books that is hard to explain without giving everything away.
Wow, I'm not even sure how to begin! This book was a page turner! I started it late last night, read until my eyes closed, and then finished it today. Granted, there were extraneous details that I decided to skip over when it got a bit too wordy; however, the book kept me captivated and on the edge of my seat.
As the jacket copy implies (and something stated near the beginning), the reader doesn't really put the pieces together until nearly the end of the novel. For me, that wasn't the case. From the first comment of the balloon adventure, I figured out was had happened and had a very good idea what was going to happen. That being said, it was still hard to put the book down.
Aside from the fact that it was intensely captivating, I'm not sure what else there is to say about this book. It definitely pulls at the heart strings and plays on the imaginary nature of childhood. However, the dark and sinister aspect makes you think about things in a different light.
