Imaginary Friend is written by Stephen Chbosky, the author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It's the first novel he's written in 20 years. Imaginary Friend is a horror novel centered around a young boy, Christopher, who disappears for six days and when he is found he has changed. Christopher starts seeing and hearing things. Christopher begins to hear and see a man who he refers to as the nice man and he begins to hear and see a woman who hisses and is quite creepy. Throughout the novel you are trying to determine what's real and what isn't. You are left wondering if Christopher is really hearing and seeing the things he says he is or if he is dreaming.
This novel is reminiscent of Stephen King. I read somewhere that Chbosky took inspiration from Stephen King and while reading I definitely felt like it could have been a novel written by Stephen King. I found this novel way more engaging than any Stephen King novel I have read. It's a 720 page book and I didn't want to put it down. It definitely didn't feel like I was reading a 720 page novel.
The novel is told in third person but the majority of the novel focuses on Christopher and his experiences with these very scary things that are happening to him. I thought the author did a good job writing about younger children. I thought his writing was done quite well and I ended up caring about all the characters that were introduced throughout the novel. I wanted to see the characters make it out of the story in one piece because I cared so much. I especially liked the relationship that Christopher had with his mom, Kate. The author conveys the love a mother can have for her child perfectly.
I think the biggest thing I struggled with is that I could predict some of the things that were going to happen. There’s a few twists in the novel and I was able to predict most of them. I don’t think that took away from my enjoyment of the novel but it definitely disappointed me because I could see some of what was going to happen next. I did struggle a bit with the length. While I thoroughly enjoyed the novel I still did not see any reason that it needed to be 720 pages. There were parts that could have been cut down a bit and wouldn’t have taken away from the novel.
I rated this novel 4 out of 5 stars. I would recommend that you give it a read if you are looking for something creepy to enjoy.
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