There's a recurring mention of negative space in this book, specifically how the gaps themselves between a tree's leaves and branches can appear to be in the shape of something that isn't (couldn't? shouldn't?) be there. Stepping back from it and looking at the book as a whole, I feel like I can see everything I wanted it to do in all of the things it didn't.

The premise and setup is easy enough to follow; a recent divorcee is down on her luck and crashes at her eccentric uncle's place until she can get back on her feet. Said uncle owns a tourist trap in a small town in the Carolinas, and when a knee surgery takes him out of commission for a while, Kara's forced to hold down the fort by her own. One day she finds a new hole in one of the walls, she goes through with the barista next door, and cosmic horror hijinks ensue.

(Sidenote: This book heavily referenced The Willows by Algernon Blackwater, which I'm still kicking myself for not having read yet. Maybe I would have gotten more enjoyment out of it if I could catch all the references that I knew were going over my head.)

I was really invested... for the middle third of this book. But then the interesting bit got resolved sooner than I expected it to. Which on its own is fine; it's certainly not a bad thing to have my expectations subverted. It just felt like the book sort of tread water after that point after losing all the momentum it had built up beforehand. And after a strange episode that felt a little campy to me and like something out of some gimmick 80's horror B-film, the book climaxes after going through what I guess I would call a "subgenre shift." Still firmly horror, just not the same kind that the story began with.

Not exactly what I personally was looking for, but this would be a safe recommendation to someone new to the genre that wanted something that didn't lean on old tropes too hard. Certainly no serial killers slashing up teens in the woods or any kind of monster you'd recognize from other media going on here.