![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() There was a great sense of foreboding throughout, and moments that legitimately creeped me out, especially one particular segment that involved his best friend’s sister. Instead of a linear path that led from point A to B as would typically be expected in any book, Auerbach went back and forth in the timeline of his protagonist’s youth, detailing weird incidents that he didn’t understand at the time. The individual stories here definitely fit the bill, it had its wholesome adventures of friendship while offering morsels of something more sinister, and it even took some effort on my part in trying to piece together the unfolding mystery as it was told by the anonymous narrator. ![]() I’d say the execution worked fairly well in an imperfect kind of way, at least from my perspective of it, but then I’ve always enjoyed the formula of childhood retellings where innocence is shattered by something the protagonist isn’t equipped to deal with it’s that struggle I ultimately look for. Creepypasta has its appeal, but usually the point is to expand on an idea through the use of a devoted community, so confining it to a novel would in turn sacrifice much of that evolution, essentially relying on the bare bones experience. Knowing that Penpal was originally posted on a Reddit forum (r/nosleep) piqued my curiosity a lot, as even though I wasn’t familiar with the short, interconnected stories that had gained a large following, I had to wonder how it all came together in the form of a novel. ![]()
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