Book Review: Give Me Something Good to Eat by D.W. Gillespie
Title: Give Me Something Good to Eat
Author: D.W. Gillespie
Release date: August 13th, 2024
I’ve long been a fan of Gillespie’s writing, though until now, it’s been purely in the adult horror world, with his novels ‘One by One’ and ‘The Toy Thief’ both absolutely underrated gems, and his collection ‘Handmade Monsters’ full of great short fiction.
Now, I spend most of my reading time entrenched in the adult horror world, though – and this is usually with my son – I dive into Middle Grade horror occasionally. Sometimes though, I simply want to get through an MG read far faster than if I was reading it with my son – and that’s no slight on him, but sometimes we only get 20 minutes to read a night together and that’s usually devoted to dinosaur books or our ongoing read through ‘The Wild Robot 2’ – as I can burn through it far faster.
I’ve had this one from Gillespie, his first foray into MG fiction, for some time now, and I’ve watched it inch up my never-ending-TBR-of-doom for the last few months. When it finally made it to the very tip top, I was stoked. I wanted to see what he’d conjured and what adult horror sensibilities he was going to bring to the MG horror world.
What I liked: Taking place in the town of Pearl, life is wonderful and everyone is happy – especially on Halloween. On Halloween, the streets come alive, kids treat-or-treat and then the night culminates with a huge party. Except there’s a sinister side. And it seems only Mason Miller remembers it. See, every Halloween a kid goes missing, but nobody remembers it. Except Mason.
Gillespie sets things up really well, giving us a wonderfully tense opening and then introducing us to Mason and his best friend, Serge. For some reason, Mason is the only one who remembers the kids going missing, mostly because he wrote a story with a previous best friend, who went missing and Mason doesn’t understand why nothing was done.
When Mason’s younger sister, Meg, goes missing on Halloween, the story really takes off, with Mason and Serge – and two new friends in tow – discover what’s really been going on and have to fight the evil forces that threaten every kid in town.
It reminded me a lot of ‘Monster Squad’ in that it was the kids banding together and strange creatures trying to hold supreme over the town.
This story was a lot of fun and throughout, I could envision where D.W. would’ve had to take a step back and tone down the descriptions from what I’m used to him writing.
The ending was great and was really perfect for a book for kids of this targeted age. Where us old, jaded, horror readers want doom, gloom and despair at the end, those far younger want good to overcome evil, friends to come together and work as a collective and for the sun to be shining, which was all done really well by Gillespie here.
What I didn’t like: For an MG horror book, this was perfect. Much like Trevor Henderson’s recent ‘Scarewaves’ or anything Lora Senf has released, this gave us a perfect setting, great characters and a really fun storyline. BUT – if you’re an old reader like me, it’ll all feel very familiar and something you’ve read before. So, while it works perfectly for those not yet old enough to drive, if you’re looking for something to absolutely surprise you, you won’t find that here.
Why you should buy this: Gillespie has seemingly found his new sweet spot for writing – which is wonderful because he’s a writer that should be read far and wide – and this one hits it out of the ball park. I’m looking forward to reading this with me son, but I’m also hopeful we’ll see Mason and crew in the future in another adventure. Gillespie’s given us a truly engaging story that had me zipping through it in no time at all!
