by Chuck Wendig
Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there.
Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures.
Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania.
Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver.
And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic.
This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family—and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this battle: their love for one another.
My take
Horror is not usually my thing but I really liked The Wanderers and had read lots of good comments on this one so I jumped on it when it went on sale. It was dark, creepy, and depressing. Yet not beyond hope. I found myself rooting for most of the characters. The pacing was good too. Not something breathless that kept me up at night to find out what happened next. Books like that often feel compelling while I’m into them but afterwards are … meh? Like I didn’t get a chance to really absorb things?