Book Review: IMAGINARY FRIEND by Stephen Chbosky

IMAGINARY FRIEND by Stephen Chbosky (Grand Central Publishing, October 2019)  Hardcover, Large Print Edition, 1200 pages. ISBN # 1538733854 / 9781538733851. Goodreads Choice Award Nominee For Horror 2019  

Summary on the Goodreads website . . . . .

Christopher is seven years old. Christopher is the new kid in town. Christopher has an imaginary friend.

We can swallow our fear or let our fear swallow us. Single mother Kate Reese is on the run. Determined to improve life for her and her son, Christopher, she flees an abusive relationship in the middle of the night with her child. Together, they find themselves drawn to the tight-knit community of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania. It's as far off the beaten track as they can get. Just one highway in, one highway out. 

At first, it seems like the perfect place to finally settle down. Then Christopher vanishes. For six long days, no one can find him. Until Christopher 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 tree house in the woods by Christmas, or his mother and everyone in the town will never be the same again.  

My 3.5 Star review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

     While I enjoyed this book, I grew a bit impatient with it and was looking forward to finishing it.  Still, the plusses outweighs the minuses enough to give it 3.5 stars. I’d also recommend it to anyone with the patience to wade through its 700+ pages (1200 in large print!).

LIKES

1. What Chobsky does best, and my favorite thing about the novel, is to create endearing characters. It only took two chapters to warm up to young Christopher Reese and his mother Kate. I couldn’t help rooting for them to get a break and cheering when some good fortune occurred. There’s also a multitude of reasons to worry about them, but no spoilers here.  The characters are so complete, fully realized and not stereotypes. Chbosky has a skill at opening up his characters’ heads and letting us peek inside to know and feel what they are thinking.

2. The writing style - - short, simple yet crisp sentences that move the story along. Also very appropriate for a child’s point of view.

3)  Chobsky can also turn on the fear when necessary. The prologue was   very creepy and set the tone for the whole book.  There are many moments that will create anxiety in readers. 

4) The geographical references and personal memories. The town of Mill Grove PA in the story is located somewhere near Pittsburgh. I grew up in Allison Park PA and recognize many of the nearby towns, locations, and local brands that Chbosky name-drops. However, there is an actual Mill Grove in PA - - it's between Reading and Allentown on the other side of the state. There is also an historic home near Audobon PA called Mill Grove.

5)  There are some not-so-obvious but interesting parallels to Stephen King’s THE STAND as well as Joe Hill’s NS4A2.

6) The plot twists. There’s a love/hate relationship here as while I liked some of these twists there were also others that bothered me.  I made many notes on these in the Goodreads Group Discussion I participated in with the Horror Afficianados Community, but I won’t include them here because of spoilers.

6) Chbosky’s choice of topic and use of the horror genre to tell his story. There are religious themes here, something not often utilized this particular way in a horror novel. To tell more would be to spoil it. 

DISLIKES

1. The length of the book. While I enjoyed all the scenes, this could easily have been edited down to a 500 page story. I was excited and annoyed at the same time by the capture-escape-chase-fight-capture-escape-chase-fight cycle in the latter part of the book. A bit repetitive despite being well-written and completely engaging. 

2. Some of the plot twists bothered me, as I felt they were contrived. It’s not always a good idea to mislead readers. Chbosky does explain some of these later in the book, but not to my entire satisfaction. I can’t get specific about this without including spoilers, so I won’t.

3. There were some questions raised that never were fully answered, leaving readers to speculate.

4. False endings, the conclusion of Part V especially. However, I was actually glad the story wasn’t over - as there were still unresolved questions.

5. Goodreads limited rating system. Because of my dislikes I don’t feel this deserves 4 stars. However, it’s better than 3 stars, which I consider rating books that satisfy my expectations. It went a little beyond that. I would prefer to rate the book 3.5 stars.  Maybe someday Goodreads will expand the rating system to allow for that.