Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I really must commend all the readers and reviewers that read and loved this book. I am at 81% right now and have the most incredible headache from reading this tome! I don't know what is pushing me more -the fact that I can't 'not' finish an ARC? That everyone else loved it and I am really disliking it? That I have more questions than the book has answered?

My problems are many:

Firstly, I am a Baby Boomer and that means my favorite horror writers will always be Stephen King, Robert McCammon and those of that ilk. I am not averse to reading new horror authors if they can be unique. When a modern author tries to do what they (the original kings of the horror genre) did and can't do it well and I can see it in the first 100 pages or so, it does not bode well.

Secondly, I have issues with some of the, well for lack of a better term, the time period. It is supposed to be (I am assuming) modern times. But some of the things the author talks such as Special Education, Floods or High Waters for pants, or amazement at a school having a computer lab rings of the entire book being written back in the '70s, not just the first few chapters which do take place in the '50s.

Thirdly, many many characters and more than I could keep straight as well as the different...er...dimensions, moods, evil people and what-not. I also had a lot of problems relating these characters to 7-year-olds.

Lastly, The usage of capitalization in the middle of words is unique and is what finally brought this migraine on. It, in my opinion, is extremely difficult to read in this manner, but I can see why the author wants us to read these parts with difficulty. A bad move -he could have used italics but I'm not the author.

IF I finally finish the entire book and I change my mind about any of this I'll let you know.

*ARC supplied by the publisher.


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