Quick Synopsis – After being sent to live with his Aunt and Uncle in a small town, Richard is witnessing some truly horrifying things. The only problem is, no one believes him, maybe he doesn’t even believe himself.

Song This Reminds Me Of – Where is My Mind – The Pixies

Rating – 4 out of 5 ⭐

Publication Date – Oct. 3, 2023

Review – This is the first book I’ve read by Jo Nesbo, but I have a feeling it won’t be the last. If you’re a fan of Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane, you’ll probably like this book. Its a quick horror/thriller novella.

Richard is depicted as the ultimate little shit. At first he was so unlikeable I had a hard time reading the book. He routinely picks on his classmates and body shames others. On top of this he keeps witnessing truly horrifying things and no one believes him. He convinces his classmate to prank call a random phone number, only to witness his classmate being brutally sucked through the receiver. Of course this new missing person is blamed on outsider Richard. Plus another kid goes missing in a similarly magic way. Karen, another more enigmatic outsider is the only one who believes him.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say that Richard is an unreliable narrator and the book is split into three distinct parts. Almost like a story within a story within a story. I really enjoyed reading through how Richard was processing and overcoming his personal trauma. I thought this was a good book and I was very engaged the whole way through.

This is a translation so there were some parts that grammatically didn’t make sense that I’m chalking up to the translation. The only reason this wasn’t a 5 star read for me is that the main character was such a little prick that I wanted to put the book down. I thought the author could have introduced or hinted at his trauma earlier to make Richard a more likable character.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf publishing for the eARC. All opinions expressed are my own.