Surprising no one, it is inadvisable to climb mysterious staircases in the woods. Best case scenario you still get a splinter from the handrail while trying to avoid stepping through the water-damaged treads on your way to making an “I have the high ground” joke that is not worth the effort. Worst case scenario a dancing clown lures you into Hell with the paper boat your brother folded for you.

Brief Thoughts: Ok there is no Pennywise, but all it took was one person comparing this to It for me to never stop seeing similarities between the Stephen King classic and this trauma tourism novel in which, you guessed it, decades after a friend is lost in the woods the remaining four estranged members of the group (the obnoxious jokester who thinks slurs and insensitivity equals comedy, the chubby kid who “glows up” in the years apart, the token girl [who identifies as genderfluid as an adult] two of the boys pine after, and the designated sad boy) get back together to figure out what really happened.

And that’s all I’m going to say about the plot.

A Favorite Highlighted Quote: “Don’t do it for pity.” He smirked. “You can do it for the guilt, though.”

Biggest Complaint: Admittedly I didn’t really like any of the well-trod characters — they were just amalgamations of traits that didn’t built to characters that felt real or honest — but Chuck Wendig wrote the one genderfluid character (she/they, currently she/her), Lore, as if his sole means of research was Twitter to determine what triggers the type of men who were “pushed” to vote for Trump the most. It’s not how she’s still (rightfully) fuming about Gamergate and MeToo that annoyed me — I’m right there with her choosing a bear over a man in the woods — it’s the way she goes about expressing it. Her default setting is preemptive, confrontational defensiveness that tends towards centering herself, which takes her over the line of relatable to insufferable rather quickly. Just to give you an example, on more than one occasion she responds to someone’s extreme self harm with something like “yeah well I’m a polyamorous pansexual so we’ve both been through it”… Her lack of social grace is exhausting. 

Oh, and the rest of her personality is just gaming references. Not Ready Player One levels of references, but still a bit much.

Another Favorite Highlighted Quote: “She let the anger have its moment, then she hit it over the head and threw it in a deep grave, and from that earth she grew a garden of vigorous indifference.”

Brief Thoughts (Cont.): It was when Lore described a girl as having “unalived herself” at 38% of the way through the book (after previously saying “jill off” instead of “jack off”) that I almost broke my 50% rule and DNFed on the spot. I’d already been struggling with my waning interest for a while, but the plot finally kicking off with a shift to exploring the mysterious, magical grotesquery of what was waiting upstairs just prior to this was enough of a push needed to reinvigorate my motivation to keep trudging on, albeit warily. Unfortunately, the trauma of their surroundings eventually dulled to empty shock value, the urgency in their desperation was lost, something was described as greige 19 times, and I was back to struggling towards the finish line.

One Last Thing: As if I wasn’t already fighting against the writing, any and all modern references — Minecraft, tiki torch-toting red hat enthusiasts, men vs bear tweets, “notice me senpai,” Covid — felt so incongruous with the timelessness of the setting that I was pulled from the story I was already struggling to remain invested in every time.

Final Thoughts: Long story short, I had to force myself to finish this one with the hope that the ending would make it all worth it (it did not). The premise was interesting, sure, but that alone couldn’t carry the book.