It is a good story overall, with a dyslexic boy brought up by single mum escaping past trauma and ex husband who killed himself after hearing voices and being unable to deal with it. The boy gets lured into this forest and he is missing for 6 days, when he then finds his way out and life has changed for him. It was all quite interesting, how his reading and calculation skills rapidly improved, and he convinces his 3 friends to build a tree house in the woods. He heads omens everywhere, such as death is coming, death is here, you'll die on Christmas day (how appropriate timing to read this book), and he is urged on by the good guy (imaginary Friend) to ensure he finishes it before Christmas.
Now I started losing intrerest as the second half or more of this book, which isn't short to begin with, all happened over about 24h. The back and forths, the innumerable fights between different parties, the influenced townsfolk all working against him, as he then nearly kills the whispering lady and everything gets turned on its head, the near killings yet nothing is dying... It all dragged quite a lot and when you thought that there really is no other way for this to go than end, they find a way to make it more complex.
So, if it were perhaps not so prolonged, I would have liked it more, but it just got too much for me overall. Very magnificent ending though.