This is 3.5 stars I’m going to round up to 4. Overall I was pretty well entertained!

I enjoyed Marjorie and Merry’s dynamic, and I found Merry to be a convincing child perspective. I liked the religious angle of the story, and the way the parents’ relationship fell apart.

I also enjoyed the ambiguous ending - I think you could come up with lots of theories about this book, and I’ll be looking at other reviews to see what folks think.

But I gave it 3.5 stars for a reason! I didn’t enjoy the blog entries and all the analysis that brought up horror movies and books and such. I was bored by it, and I was not familiar with a lot of the references. I don’t enjoy pop culture references in books because of that.

I also don’t enjoy reading from a kid’s perspective, so I didn’t love the fact that I was reading from Merry. Getting the book from Marjorie’s perspective might’ve been too difficult given how Tremblay wants to keep the truth vague. I’d have taken either parents’s perspective to be honest - both of them have downward spirals I’d have found compelling. Having said that, Merry’s perspective felt like a child’s without being condescending or overly precious.

I was definitely engaged and I felt for the sisters a lot. The way their relationship is presented, it’s very messy, such that it would be difficult to figure out how to feel about Marjorie. That was the best part of the story for me.