Slender Man

I'll be honest, I mostly picked this one up because I was intrigued that there was no author credited for writing it, which I have never seen before for a physically published book. Didn't hurt that I got a decent read out of it too!

This book is 100% epistolary, made up of emails, reddit threads, text messages, office letterheads, subtitled voicemails, and newspaper clippings, which is a gimmick that will work on me every single time and this was no exception. The only exception here is that it felt more genuine than I've seen it done in the past: teenagers don't use overexaggerated "LOL omg"-type text messages and instead send each other legible, understandable sentences. And the reddit threads use the actual formatting and even match the sometimes supportive, sometimes oddly hostile interactions you come across on there.

Regarding the content and story itself, this is a very self-aware book that knows and addresses the titular mythos head-on (hell, Marble Hornets itself gets directly name-dropped twice, which I appreciated), and the characters dance around it in a believable way. I felt the book was better serviced in handling it like that, rather than ignoring the history of Slenderman that a reader might have going into this book; I appreciated that this built upon my real-world knowledge rather than attempting to be a completely novel and isolated take.

The ending was appropriately ambiguous and while I'm never crazy about teenage protagonists, Matt could've been a lot worse. Try this as a surprisingly quick palate cleanser in-between longer reads.