I enjoyed the author’s ability to make me feel whatever he wanted me to feel. If a character was likable or even a breath of fresh air… I genuinely liked them. But when another character was being creepy, annoying, scary, or pretty often in this novel… not understanding of someone’s boundaries, I felt as I should have. I found myself annoyed by the pushy neighbors and their church activities. Weird ass small town.

The style of Hood’s writing could be comparable to Stephen King’s signature style of descriptive writing. Everything can be visualized, felt, and understood. What I’m trying to say is this; Joseph Hood was in COMPLETE CONTROL as an author with “My Friend Nick”. Love or hate this novel, one has to respect the author’s ability to have their vision executed. The writing was intelligent!

If I had critiques, I’d imagine they would be things the author was aware of before the book was written. I can tell this was an intentional vision executed! I saw it as a slow burn, I didn’t always like the little girl the story was centered around, and as Stephen King famously does, it’s a lot of describing everything felt and occurring. More of that than actual dialogue. But when there was dialogue, it was PERFECTLY EXECUTED!

The ending was VERY SURPRISING and it was above and beyond what I hoped to read in horror. He went there, Joseph Hood really went there! I reflect on this and it was real, everything about it. “The Bride Of Warren” is another book from this author and I felt that was absolutely incredible! Since it comes after this novel, I feel he would take this as a compliment… I enjoyed that novel a little bit more than this one. That’s improvement from an already well executed writing talent!