Rating: 4.5/5
Plot
Christopher is seven years old. Christopher is the new kid in town. Christopher has an imaginary friend. 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 Christopher at her side. 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 awful 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. Soon Kate and Christopher find themselves in the fight of their lives, caught in the middle of a war playing out between good and evil, with their small town as the battleground.
Thoughts
What a spectacular sophomore novel from Stephen Chobsky.
I must confess that I went into this book with fairly low expectations after having read a bunch of reviews of it, but there was still a level of unchecked excitement because <i>it's a new novel from Stephen Chbosky!! after all these years!!</i> Alas, both of these things somehow faded away because of how immersive the reading experience itself happened to be. It truly is a rare thing, in my reading experience especially, for a story to pull you in with such intensity that the world outside dims until it's nothing more than a whisper in your ear and you've forgotten how you happened to pick this book up or what you expected going in. One may even go as far as to say that this novel's sophistication and intricacy speaks volumes as to why it spent so long in the making.
In a strange mix of Stephen King and Stranger Things (except, you know, suitable for my taste unlike the two), Chbosky delivers a book that feels simultaneously unlike what would have been expected of him and like the exact kind of story he would have ultimately delivered. In the same vein, the story you follow throughout the novel shifts and morphs and becomes a thing that defies whatever original expectations you may have had for it while also feeling like it develops organically. There are so many twists and turns sprinkled throughout the book that Chbosky accomplishes a difficult task expected of horror writers: he traps the reader in an endless cycle of anxiety, tension and feeling unsettled; whenever you may feel like the story reaches its climax and approaches a sense of peace, it all ends up having been a hoax and you are merely thrown down another path the story takes. Needless to say, this was basically me losing my mind in the best way for 700 pages.
Chbosky's characters feel authentic and lifelike, as well as complex. I know a common criticism of this book was its unnecessary focus on so many of the characters surrounding the protagonist and his inner circle, but I shall attempt to defend that choice. For the scope of the kind of story and impact Chbosky clearly strives for through this book, it was necessary to keep those in, to offer the reader so detailed a picture of the real world and its inhabitants that the realism of it is undeniable and impossible to ignore. Moreover, you as a reader are forced to inhabit the minds and lives of all these different people and understand their individual motivations and stories (which in turn will be crucial when it comes to understanding the way the book eventually ends).
It's hard to speak about the themes of the book without getting too spoiler-y, but I will say that at the heart of it all, Imaginary Friend feels loyal to Chbosky's previous work, both literary and otherwise. (do have to add that the man's work in film felt very clear to me while reading this book, there is a very strange cinematic quality to it). There are countless things that Chbosky strives to explore through this novel, such as family, forgiveness, religion, redemption, regret, death, abuse, neglect, humanity, etc. It is perhaps as an homage to his origin in kidslit that there is a shocking, yet undeniable truth: despite the book's dark tone and the complexity and terror of the things it tackles, it is, ultimately, a hopeful, endearing story at its core and that is no small feat.
It is an absolute joy to read in a world where there is a new Stephen Chbosky novel and, though it may be quite early to say this, I cannot wait to see what else he has in store.
Comments
Post a Comment