★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Heavy subject. Breezy presentation. That’s really the brilliance of Clay McLeod Chapman. The ability to pick apart a heady emotional construct in a way that’s engaging, insightful, and most of all frightening!
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Equal parts Stand By Me, Stranger Things, and Hellraiser, the Shelter of the Damned presents a pretty dark look at adolescence and the lengths that kids will go to to get out of school.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ Is there anyone more qualified to tell the emotional tale of a mother and son relationship beset by ghostly visuals and a murderous mystery? If there is please tell us because as far as we’re concerned Stephen King is still sitting a top horror hill and there’s not anyone out there that will ever reach this pinnacle.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
In the increasingly fast-paced world of horror sometimes it’s really nice to bathe in a simple and pastoral story. The intensity of fast zombies, flying chainsaws, and hyper-speed ghouls has a time and place, but it’s also a nice bit of calm when the characters and the story unfold in a relaxed and less apocalyptic way.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
A determined novel that spans multiple time frames and plumb near covers every last aspect horror genre -- except for UFOs and Bigfoot. That might sound like a stretch, but it ain’t. There’s witches. There’s ghouls. There’s 1970s grindhouse lore. There’s the conventions and their inevitable fan-boy hangers on. There’s even true crime podcasters. This book covers it all. Maybe that’s a good thing and maybe it’s not.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ The rise of the podcast generation paired with a nation’s emerging fascination with rampant conspiracy theories is the perfect backdrop for a horrifying and mercurial folk tale. In both the case of podcasts and conspiracies people don’t stop until they’ve reached the ever-loving bottom of the barrel. The problem is these barrels have no bottoms.