Summer of Night

Welcome to Elm Haven, we have a Grand School Buildung and dead kids.…

Bewertet: Buch (Taschenbuch)

It's the summer of 1960, the best time for the "Bike Patrol", a bunch of eleven year old boys in a small american midwest town. Or at least it should be. School has ended, they have a long summer ahead to play games and drive around on their bikes, but the best of it all: They never have to go back to their old school, Grand Central. Imagined by its builders as grand as the name implies Grand Central has become the bane of existence to the school children of Elm Haven. But now the school is being closed and replaced and everything is going to be great for the summer. Or not. Because things lurk in the shadows and kids are disappearing.... This book gets often compared to Stephen Kings "It" and the comparison holds up. Schoolkids, horror, supernatural creatures, insufferable adults and a lot of nostalgia - in this case the 1960s- connect this novel to Stephen Kings bestseller. It's also quite a long read (around 600 pages) and a slow burn in the beginning. But once you make it through the first three chapters, the characters are all set up - there are a lot of them- and the story starts in earnest. This book burns slow but fiercly. The supernatural elements literally creep in leisurely but almost unstoppable and the human threats are all the more terrifying for it. Especially if you consider that the main protagonists are eleven (!) year old kids. There are a few things that might be a bit offputting or weird, like kids basically doing all the cooking and cleaning, operating pump-guns or occasionally driving a car. But who knows, the 60's might have been a wild time. Don't expect this to be an easy read, but it's going to be a satisfying one.