Bark at the Ghouls

I wrote a review. It's a freaking miracle.

“This is the one. She’s no good, you’ll see.” (Ooops, I feel called out, lol)

Tasha doesn’t have any close friends. She doesn’t fit the mold of the overly tanned and waxed crew in her school and when she catches the eye of new girl Briar, she feels an instant kinship and steps in when she spies her getting harrassed by the class bully. They soon start hanging out in a whimsical and overgrown garden (where I’d like to live forever) but the bully finds them and things take a sinister turn. There are things in their tiny town that lurk and feast on pain, suffering and darkness and it seems they are just getting started.

I never quite knew where this story was headed and I loved that. I loved the off-kilter feeling of this book. There’s a feeling of inescapable dread that blankets everything past and present and I absolutely loved that too. I mean, you know the worst is coming but how bad is the worst going to get? And will any of them ever be okay again? I had to know because I was worried for these kids.

Teen girls and high emotions and secrets all make for a potent mix that is irresistible to malignant spirits and to myself, apparently. The two teens, Tasha and Briar, are fantastically, messily flawed and their parents aren’t any better. There is so much dysfunction in this story that feeds right into the malignant forces hiding in the corners. It all meshes so well.

As I was reading, I discovered this book is only one piece of a world created by the author in several other books. I think I would have benefited from reading those stories first because #1 I am nosy and #2 there are a few loose ends and comments in regards to previous events mentioned here that I didn’t fully comprehend. Maybe it was my distracted brain? That’s entirely possible these days but I can’t answer that because *cries* I READ THINGS OUT OF ORDER AGAIN! Anyhow, this book does stand decently all on its lonesome and I’m going to read the other books whenever I get my life back to some state of normal (fingers crossed).

If you’re looking for an intoxicating read that doesn't throw all of its scares in your face (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) than I feel pretty good about saying this is the book for you. Look out for the slow creep because that’s what’s gonna get you here!