Imaginary Friend
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3.8 • 287 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From a New York Times bestselling author, a young boy is haunted by a voice in his head in this "epic horror" novel, perfect for fans of Stephen King (Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will).
Single mother Kate Reese is on the run. Determined to improve life for her and her seven year-old son, Christopher, she flees an abusive relationship in the middle of the night. At first, the tight-knit community of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania seems like the perfect place to finally settle down. Then Christopher vanishes. Days later, he emerges from the woods at the edge of town, unharmed but not unchanged. He returns with a voice in his head only he can hear, with a mission only he can complete: Build a treehouse in the woods by Christmas, or his mother and everyone in the town will never be the same again.
Twenty years ago, Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower made readers everywhere feel infinite. Now, Chbosky has returned with an epic work of literary horror, years in the making, whose grand scale and rich emotion redefine the genre. Read it with the lights on.
One of The Year's Best Books (People, EW, Lithub, Vox, Washington Post, and more)
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This book feels like a true literary event. Since the 1999 release of his wildly entertaining coming-of-age novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky has created a successful career writing and directing for the screen. His long-awaited return to the novel? A horror story. And a horror so scary that even Stephen King might not want to read it at night. Chbosky introduces us to a single mother named Kate, who, with her son Christopher, flees an abusive relationship to start a new life. Christopher then mysteriously disappears only to return six days later—physically fine, but mentally scarred. From there, this tale is unsettling and innovative in a way unlike anything we’ve read in a long time. We’re rattled just imagining the movie adaptation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chbosky's ambitious second novel (after 1999's The Perks of Being a Wallflower) is a tale of good vs. evil that never gels. Seven-year-old Christopher and his mother, Kate, move to Mill Grove, Pa., after Kate leaves her abusive boyfriend. Kate gets a job at an old folks' home, and Christopher, who has a learning disability, starts second grade and makes friends with a boy nicknamed Special Ed. One day, Christopher disappears into the Mission Street Woods; he emerges six days later, unscathed but his learning disability has disappeared. Kate then wins the lottery and buys a new house bordering the woods, where a disembodied voice tells Christopher to build a tree house. Before long, Christopher gets debilitating headaches and strange revelations, a mysterious sickness spreads throughout the community, and a terrifying entity dubbed "the hissing lady" lurks around town. Chbosky brings deep humanity to his characters and creates genuinely unsettling tableaux, including a nightmarish otherworld that Christopher accesses via his treehouse, but considerable repetition extends the narrative while diminishing its impact. Christian overtones (some subtle, others less so) are pervasive, especially in the finale, and add little to the story. This doorstopper is long on words but short on execution.
Customer Reviews
Starts Intensely; Falls Off Later
I really wanted to like this book and heard rave reviews about it. I don’t often DNF books, but this was the first one ever. The book has a very interesting concept and a quick and engrossing pace in the first two acts, but quickly became a chore for me to read. I’m not sure how I’d propose the author change the plot in the latter half of the story, but something about how the information was revealed left me extremely disappointed. Only completed 80%.
You only get 81 pages.
I paid $2.99 for this and only received 81 pages, this is a rip off, do not purchase. There is nowhere to report this to Apple that I can see.
Enthusiastically invested….to disappointed.
Not pleased with the ending. Would be an excellent book without the last bit of obtrusive Christian narrative.