Imaginary Friend in Random Reads

Jun 15, 2020 Madeleine rated it really liked it

Shelves: horror, own, giveaways

Thank you so much to Goodreads and Grand Central Publishing for sending me a copy of Imaginary Friend! It is the first Goodreads giveaway I win and I'm so happy about it!

"Adults are bad at remembering how powerful they can be because somewhere along the line, they were shamed for their imagination."

Overall I loved the experience of reading this story, but I had a few issues with it.
I loved the plot, I thought it was very fast-paced and imaginative, and I was immersed in this fictional world. Th Thank you so much to Goodreads and Grand Central Publishing for sending me a copy of Imaginary Friend! It is the first Goodreads giveaway I win and I'm so happy about it!

"Adults are bad at remembering how powerful they can be because somewhere along the line, they were shamed for their imagination."

Overall I loved the experience of reading this story, but I had a few issues with it.
I loved the plot, I thought it was very fast-paced and imaginative, and I was immersed in this fictional world. The main character, Christopher, was a very likeable character and it was nice to see such a strong bond between him and his mother. The constant references and vibes of Christmastime and the fantasy aspect made me think of the novel NOS4A2 by Joe Hill, and other aspects of the story reminded me of Coraline by Neil Gaiman and the tv show Stranger Things. Christopher even reminded me a bit of the main character in the movie Before I Wake by Mike Flanagan. And of course, Chbosky even says himself in the acknowledgments of this book that the story was inspired a lot by Stephen King. The build-up of the story and the connections between all of the characters was very well done and sometimes I felt like I was watching a movie. I was also really surprised by a lot of plot twists. The theme of Christianity is very heavy in the story, but it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would!

However, I thought the last 100 pages or so were very repetitive and all over the place. Usually, when a book has too much action, I get a bit bored, and that's what happened at the end of this book. It was just action scene after action scene and every time I felt like the plot was getting resolved, there was something else coming and it ended up being a bit confusing. The ending was disappointing after all of the great build-up, but it definitely didn't ruin the book for me. Also, another thing that bugged me was that every time there was a non-White character on the page (or non-heterosexual), they were written in a very stereotypical/annoying way and sometimes offensive. It's really a small part of the book, but it still bothered me.

Other than these issues, I recommend this book and think it is worth your time if you want to immerse yourself into a very interesting world that has a battle between good and evil at its core!

Here are two other quotes that I liked :

"we can swallow our fear or let our fear swallow us"

"He wondered about all those graves. If every soul who ever lived took up a grave, then eventually...Wouldn't the entire earth be covered in graves?" ...more

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