Despite some haunting scenes, a frustrating read.
An interactive haunted house is the proving ground for several self-deluded characters.
From the outset of this novel, set in Lincoln, Nebraska, circa 1997, we know that Leonard, a 37-year-old hotel manager, is on trial for murdering Bryan, a participant in a staged horror experience. Excerpts from the trial transcript and chapters named for the "cells" marking the progress of the deadly game create a structure for this study of misplaced and/or unrequited love. John is the impresario and puppet master of Quigley House, a “full-contact haunt” that has attracted a nationwide though decidedly niche fan base. Kendra, a new Quigley employee, is a 15-year-old girl still reeling from her father’s recent death. Playing on her neediness, John manipulates Kendra into persuading her cousin Bryan to join a team that will endure increasingly grisly challenges in hopes of winning $60,000. The other team members are Jaidee, a Thai exchange student at the University of Nebraska; Victor, who was his English teacher in Thailand; and Jane, Victor’s fiancee. Jaidee, who came to Nebraska to find Victor, who he thinks left coded love messages on his homework assignments, is also Bryan’s roommate. Although participants in Quigley House tours often end up with minor injuries and PTSD, the experience is not supposed to be life-threatening. Danger can always be averted by uttering the safe word, reprieve. Not this time, though, and the true mystery here is why? This is a worthy attempt at a complex psychological thriller, but it fails to stick its landing. The characters’ motivations are often opaque, and their behavior sometimes defies logic, particularly when life-altering decisions are at stake. The plot developments building to the climax will occasion much head-scratching.
Despite some haunting scenes, a frustrating read.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-307991-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.
A retelling of Pinocchio from Geppetto's point of view.
The novel purports to be the memoirs of Geppetto, a carpenter from the town of Collodi, written in the belly of a vast fish that has swallowed him. Fortunately for Geppetto, the fish has also engulfed a ship, and its supplies—fresh water, candles, hardtack, captain’s logbook, ink—are what keep the Swallowed Man going. (Collodi is, of course, the name of the author of the original Pinocchio.) A misfit whose loneliness is equaled only by his drive to make art, Geppetto scours his surroundings for supplies, crafting sculptures out of pieces of the ship’s wood, softened hardtack, mussel shells, and his own hair, half hoping and half fearing to create a companion once again that will come to life. He befriends a crab that lives all too briefly in his beard, then mourns when “she” dies. Alone in the dark, he broods over his past, reflecting on his strained relationship with his father and his harsh treatment of his own “son”—Pinocchio, the wooden puppet that somehow came to life. In true Carey fashion, the author illustrates the novel with his own images of his protagonist’s art: sketches of Pinocchio, of woodworking tools, of the women Geppetto loved; photos of driftwood, of tintypes, of a sculpted self-portrait with seaweed hair. For all its humor, the novel is dark and claustrophobic, and its true subject is the responsibilities of creators. Remembering the first time he heard of the sea monster that was to swallow him, Geppetto wonders if the monster is somehow connected to Pinocchio: “The unnatural child had so thrown the world off-balance that it must be righted at any cost, and perhaps the only thing with the power to right it was a gigantic sea monster, born—I began to suppose this—just after I cracked the world by making a wooden person.” Later, contemplating his self-portrait bust, Geppetto asks, “Monster of the deep. Am I, then, the monster? Do I nightmare myself?”
A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-18887-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Hilarious, grotesque, and standing slightly in the shadow of its sibling.
Awad returns to the world of Bunny (2019), armed with her signature satirical and surrealist flair.
Samantha Heather Mackey has written a novel, and when she arrives on the dreamy and violent campus of Warren University, where she got her MFA, for her book tour, her fellow former students known as the Bunnies kidnap her and confront her about her thinly veiled autobiographical debut. Now the Bunnies are finally getting their say—and, boy, are they talkative. Offering a kaleidoscopic view of what went down before, during, and after the events chronicled in Bunny, the girls can’t contain their rage, disgust, jealousy, boredom, and hurt over Samantha and her novel. Eventually, Aerius, the Bunnies’ “First Boy. First Draft. First Darling.…First humiliation,” cuts in to offer his side of the story: How he came to be; his understanding (and misunderstanding) of the world; and how he causes, circumvents, and fits into the events of and beyond the first novel. Though he avoids the Bunnies (his “Keepers”) at all costs, they yearn and search for him, their finest work—even if you account for his bloody, violent streak. Considering whether Aerius was the town’s deranged murderer, they slyly say, “But ultimately, we simply did not think so, no. Because he’d come from us and we were lovely. As has already been stated.” This novel is at its best when musing about creativity, writing, and “the work”; skewering academia and elitism; and straddling the slippery border between reality and fantasy. Billed as a standalone, it is most successful as a companion to its predecessor, though at times it reveals too much about the mysterious lore and elusive dynamics of the first novel. Awad’s pacing is uneven, but she sticks the landing with a delightfully unexpected and unhinged ending. Her wit, humor, and metafictional prowess are on full display in this prequel, sequel, expanded upside-down revision, or whatever you want to call it.
Hilarious, grotesque, and standing slightly in the shadow of its sibling.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668059869
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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