I loved reading this and the writing style. Felt so torn rooting for and being horrified by Tolly! 

 

Energy: Enigmatic. Contemplative. Scrupulous. 

 

🐕 Howls: Slower reflective pace mid-way (especially with the sounds). 

🐩 Tail Wags: Quasi-breaking the fourth wall style. Eager to tell the tale main character. Tangents, distractions. Written like how real people speak. Using withholding to build intrigue without being exhaustion. Exploring horror and slasher genre in a fun and thought-provoking way. 

 

The main character is writing this on an old computer, and was never a star pupil. The grammar isn’t perfect, things are written in streams of consciousness at times with tangents within tangents. I loved that because it made it feel real, but it could be frustrating for some readers. I had to read slower than usual, but it was worth it for that added character dimension.

 

Scene: 🇺🇸 Tiny town of Lamesa, West Texas. 

Perspective: A 17-year-old chilling with their Bestie on lazy summer nights when a party foul turns into a living nightmare.

Timeline: July 1989

🤓 Reader Role: Empathetic listener. Tolly telling us the story that he’s writing to Amber. 

🗺️ World-Building: Cinematic. Atmospheric. Intimate. 

🔥 Fuel: Withholding-style foreshadowing. Moral quandaries. Dynamic relationships between characters. And strangely relatable dilemmas. What drives the slasher? What if it was contagious?

📖 Cred: Suspended disbelief realism. 

 

House party. Rum and coke. Peanuts. Cowboy hats. Oily stench. Blacktop. Tumbleweed. Chicken wire. Llama stares. Motors revving. Knives. Pozole. Grain elevators. Mesquite.   

 

Content Heads-Up: Loss of parent, grief. Car accident (fatal). Gore, body horror, blood. Nicotine (chewing, cigarettes). Vomit (graphic). Allergic reaction (descriptive). Murder. Racism (covert, systemic). Animal death (very brief; birds, canines, wildlife). Head injury. Homophobia (off page mention; shaming, outing, abuse from family, ‘conversion’).

 

Rep: Food allergies. Cisgender. Heterosexual. Dark and pale skin tones. Indigenous-White and White Americans.

 

📚 Format: Library Hardcover