Review by Joshua Forbes
September 4th, 2024
These posts are just our opinions of the books we read, and don't yet reflect the decision of our judging team or the progression of the book in the SFINCS competition.
Summary:
Coming fresh out of middle school, Simon Dowel spends his freshman and sophomore years looking up to the king of the school, and also his older brother, Freddie Dowel. What used to be their town's pride and joy, the Fairegrove shopping center, closed down for unexplained reasons, garnering a cult of radical kids in its abandoned lot.
Freddie introduces Simon to the lot, as well as the manhood that comes with it. Simon falls in and out of love and finally starts to fit in with those around him, until it appeared one day. A giant mouth had mysteriously erected itself along the outer wall of the shopping center. None of the kids present have any idea what it is, and a quick check inside shows nowhere it could possibly lead.
But it has to lead somewhere, or at least Freddie Dowel seems to believe.
A prank gone wrong leads to the first death at the hands of the maw, though the town’s folk don’t seem keen on persecuting the grotesque opening, and the lives of the Dowel brothers can’t possibly stay the same.
The Good:
Quite possibly my favorite thing about this story was the structure. The author broke it down into sections with each section further divided by an in-universe news article. These news stories correlate directly with the end of the last section, and give a fantastic glimpse into what this story looks like from an outside perspective.
A major criticism raised against novellas is the lack of character depth, but I’d argue that’s the strongest aspect of this book. I feel like Simon is a very understandable character, and relatable for many, and those who don’t relate to him may instead see themselves in Freddie. Their emotional states change drastically based on what’s going on storywise, which made everything more believable.
A specific description about halfway through the story was one of the saddest concepts I’ve read, and watching from an outside perspective sells the guilt Simon feels inside.
I’ll admit that I was skeptical going into the story. It was hard to believe this one element could be stretched into an enjoyable story, but I was pleasantly surprised. One of the strangest things to me is that almost anything could’ve been the catalyst for this story, but the author chose the most bizarre option, and it worked.
The Bad:
The first chunk of the story, primarily before the maw appears, felt like a bit of a slog to get through, but that could be chalked up to my personal disinterest in soap opera-esque drama. I’ve come to understand the necessity of some points made in this section, but even in a novella, something could be cut.
I wouldn’t read this story in hopes of an explanation. Though a fascinating concept, the nature of the maw isn’t delved into much aside from some hearsay in Simon’s dreams. The author instead focuses on the impact of the mouth’s appearance on the Dowel family, but I was hoping for a little more to chew on with the supernatural aspect.
There’s not much else I want to criticize about the story. Some characters could’ve been used to a slightly greater effect, but the ones that matter are handled perfectly fine. I caught a couple of typos during my reading, but only one I had to stop and analyze. The prose can be a little repetitive whether to intentionally highlight something or accidental. Nothing unreadable.
Overall:
Coming into this story, I was prepared for a mystery and some alien or monstrous root of everything, but that’s not what this story was about.
This is a story about characters, specifically two brothers with different mindsets falling from grace in possibly the least graceful way. There’s a surprisingly good arc for a novella, and though abrupt, a satisfying enough ending. Truly, the weirdest concepts stem the most interesting reads.
Four stars out of five.
Be sure to tune in to our Twitter/X @ZachForbesBro for new blog posts about the novellas we read for the SFINCS competition! And click through to our website if you want to see other projects my brother and I have been working on!
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