I think for the most part I really had fun reading it – it was spooky, creepy, had a mystery, and Pupkin. I was listening to the audiobook so that "Kakaweewe" is gonna be stuck in my head for a while. The author repeats "he said, she said, he said, she said" so much that it was hard to ignore it. The book has a dysfunctional family with complex characters dealing with grief and generational trauma, but I really disliked Louise. She kept trying to be the adult in every situation, not realizing how demeaning and condescending she was to the men in her life. As an older sister, I had to learn how to treat my younger brother like his own person, like my parents did with me, and not dismiss him for being younger. I also had to let our differences define our relationship, never mind that he copies everything I do and tries to act like my older brother.
The whole "find God" thing with the aunt was starting to annoy me, but then she says, “I once battled a warlock in Summerville.” LMAO, which just snapped me out of it. Pupkin was so creepy, Kakaweewe, especially when he took complete possession of Poppy. I didn’t really like the ending, though, with him becoming Freddie again and becoming good. I was really hoping for a bad or dramatic ending, but I suppose I can make peace with the fact that they finally got to alleviate some of the family suffering and generational trauma. In all, I really enjoyed reading this book. There was stuff that was done well: the family dynamics, the puppets, and creepy dolls. I didn’t mind so much that I thought I was getting ghosts and essentially got different ghosts than I was expecting. The emotional triggers are more personal issues, but they did affect my enjoyment. After reading two books, I still do not get the Grady Hendrix hype train, but instead of wanting to launch all of his books into the sun, now the feeling has mellowed into a more “this author just isn’t for me” feeling. So for that reason alone, I’m glad I gave this a try. I’ll probably still give it 3 stars because it was fine.
While writing this, I just realized this book has so many parallels with my family's own paranormal lore.
