Imaginary Friend Review

Hello, all!

Like many, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky was a huge book for me in high school. When I heard he was coming out with a new horror novel, Imaginary Friend, I was super interested. Big thank you to Netgalley for the copy!

Pub Date: 10-1-19
Adult - Horror

Kate Reese and her 7-year old son, Christopher, are on the run. After fleeing her abusive boyfriend in the middle of the night, the pair end up as far off the beaten path as they could find: Mill Grove, Pennsylvania. At first, everything seems to be going well, then Christopher vanishes for six days and emerges from the woods seemingly unharmed, but he soon finds not completely unchanged.

Christopher has no recollection of the days he spent lost in the woods. He has no idea how he got there, but he knows that a "nice man" helped him get out. After the local sheriff and police force scour the woods and find no trace of anyone, Christopher's claims are brushed aside as a hallucination. But someone did help Christopher, it's the same voice that's now in his head pushing him to complete a mission only he can pull off: Build a tree house in the woods by Christmas or else his mother, and the entire town, will never be the same again.

This was...ambitious. The whole premise was definitely intriguing, but it's a bit hard to stay suspenseful at over 700 pages. I felt like it could've easily been at least 300 pages shorter and the story would've been way more effective. I didn't fully feel the horror aspects that I was expecting, but it was still eerie at times. I also didn't realize how big of a part religion would have in this. Overall, I thought it was just okay.

Rating: 2.75/5