Here’s what I learned after Mom disappeared: that your body keeps breathing even when your brain shuts down. That you can talk about trivialities while the world burns down around you.

The son of two scientists, Harrison Harrison—Harrison x Harrison = H2, for short—has been touched by tragedy at a young age. As a toddler, he remembers watching his father being consumed by something in the sea, disappeared and never to return again. The same horror that stole his father also took Harrison's left leg, and although he dreams of sharp teeth and creatures in the deep, H2 clings instead to the rational—he fears the water, sure, but not because of tentacled creatures in the deep or anything.

And though he misses his father, H2 and his mother make a good team. Sure, she's prone to slip into Absent Minded Professor mode and forget important things (like Harrison's transcripts, or to feed herself), but they love each other, take care of each other, and get by.

So, when his mother decides to leave sunny San Diego for the small, dreary fishing town of Dunnsmouth for research purposes, he decides to come with her. Even though it means leaving his home, his friends, and his school behind.

It's a decision H2 starts to regret. Immediately.

First, there's the utter lack of technology and general remote creepiness of the town. Second, there's the fact that his school teaches things like cryptozoology (attempting to animate a dead frog is first on the syllabus) and "practical skills" (how to tie knots for fishing nets) doesn't help. Plus, his classmates are all practically identical and the entire school staff, particularly the principal, are super creepy. Weird stuff starts to happen, too—there's an odd library, a cavernous phys ed swimming chamber, and what he swears is a werefish steals one of H2's books.

But the worst thing of all is that H2's mother just—poof!—disappears. At sea. With no inclement weather, no reported other phenomenon, her research vessel is mysteriously capsized, her captain dead, and she herself vanished without a trace.

H2 is devastated—but not defeated. When he receives a cryptic message (advising him to seek out "the Albatross"), Harrison decides to take the investigation into his own hands.

What he will discover will change everything he thought he knew about his father, his parents' research, and his entire world.

I've read other novels from Daryl Gregory before—Pandemonium, The Devil’s Alphabet, The Raising of Stony Mayhall—but Harrison Squared is different. Like Gregory's other work, this is a strange, delightfully odd and imaginative novel, featuring a strong narrative voice. But H2 is unequivocally my favorite of Gregory’s narrators. He’s wry and funny and self-aware; at the same time, he’s angry and vulnerable in a way that reads as wholly genuine, especially considering the fact that he’s lost the people closest to him. And the fact that no one seems to take him seriously—no one other than the unlikely figure of his glamorous Aunt Sel.

There’s plenty of horror lip-service in this novel—there are small tongue-in-cheek jokes, like the names of H2’s mother’s, Rosa’s, research buoys (Edgar, Howard, Steve and Pete); there are also the larger and more obvious Lovecraftian influences (I’m thinking “Dagon” in particular). While I love the quirky, atmospheric horror of Dunnsmouth and the unique traditions and secrets that it harbors, from its schools to its pagan religion, it’s truly the characters that make Harrison Squared such a memorable read.

Harrison is easily the best part of this book. I love his teenage angst, his struggles as an outsider in Dunnsmouth—not only because he’s the new kid, but because he looks different (half-Caucasian, half-dark-skinned Brazilian), and because unlike other kids in school, he has a prosthetic leg. I love that Harrison, his aunt, and his mother, are completely dedicated to each other and the thread of family that runs throughout the book.

The mystery angle and the contemporary fantasy setting is fairly familiar, though Gregory pulls it off with ease. The characters are what make Harrison Squared sing, though. And that ending! No spoilers, except to say that this book actually is a prequel to We Are All Completely Fine—a story in which H2 is a grownup, and a monster hunter. Needless to say, I’ll be picking that book up immediately.

For the aspiring Lovecraftian and contemporary fantasy lover? Harrison Squared is where it’s at. Absolutely recommended.

In Book Smugglerish: 7 tenaciously terrible tentacles out of 10.

Thea James and Ana Grilo are The Book Smugglers, a website for speculative fiction and YA. You can also find them on Twitter.