Low on spooks, but I still loved this. Recommend checking it out if you’re a fan of contemporary fiction with paranormal undertones, coming of age friendships, or cozy (but heartbreaking) horror. 

 

Energy: Worried. Vigilant. Grieving.  

Scene: 🇺🇸 Suburb of Hemlock Circle, New Jersey in the summer of 1994 and in modern day. 

Perspective: Our main character (40-something) staying in their childhood home after their parents move south to retire. Our MC at 10 years old in 1990s, as well as the other neighbours of various ages in the ‘90s. 

 

🐕 Howls: Unexpected sadness and heartbreak (but if I knew it was sad I wouldn’t have read it, so no regrets). 

🐩 Tail Wags: The nostalgia and memories the writing invoked. Preteen friendship dynamics. A suburban setting that feels real. How kid viewpoints were written.  

 

🤔 Random Thoughts: 

This is more contemporary fiction than horror/thriller. The writing captured growing up in the 90s so vividly for me. And I didn’t even grow up in suburbia!

 

The kid POVs transported me back to kid-logic days…excited to grow up but it comes with friendship changes, and realizing your parents are fallible in a way that make you want to stay a kid. 

 

The 1990s chapters allow us to have the same memories as Ethan and other characters for the way things were. In the modern chapters we spend a lot of time exploring that as an adult, so it can feel slow if you just want to get on with the plot. Ethan mulls over all the theories and possibilities for everything from paranormal activity to What Could Have Been. 

 

Horrific things happen but not much horror. If you aren’t invested in the characters and loving the vibe I see how this would be uninteresting. 

 

🤓 Reader Role: Time jumping and off to the side watching while the narrator fills us in.

🗺️ World-Building: Nostalgic, sensory, and a little tranquil. 

🔥 Fuel: Relatable Layered secrets and dynamic relationships. Who took Billy? Why? What would life be like if Billy were never taken? Is he still alive?   

📖 Cred: Realistic with paranormal realism

 

Grass. Sweat. Bug spray. Weathered baseball. Lawnmowers. Leafblowers. Garden hoses. Summer sun. Crickets. Leaves rustling. Fireflies. Page turning. Security cam thumbnail pings. Mausoleum. Chain link fence. 

 

Content Heads-Up: Missing child. Loss of child (teen, preteen). Loss of childhood friend. Anxiety. Insomnia. Childhood bullying (brief; teasing, namecalling, prejudice). Peer pressure. Relationship break-up. Drug use (teen). Overdose/suicide (recall, grief). Grief. Drunkenness. Guilt. Dementia. 

 

Rep: White, Chinese, and Diwali-celebrating Americans. Cisgender. Heterosexual. Gay. Lesbian. Diverse skin tones.

 

📚 Format: Libro.fm

 

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