Ben’s little brother Eric disappeared 5 years ago on a trip to the grocery store. Ben looked away for a moment but that’s all it took...his little brother vanished. Fast forward a few years and Ben is desperate for a job. He takes a job at the grocery story that Eric disappeared in and begins the search for answers. This is a dark, slow moving, creepy story. I found it to be incredibly lengthy as there is too much “filler” that is unnecessary to the story. I found myself skimming frequently and hoping the author would make his point. Ultimately this was not for me but if you like dark, spooky tales then this is the book for you. For me, Bad Man was ⭐️⭐️/5 stars. Thank you @doubledaybooks for this advance reader in exchange for my honest review.

I was granted access by netgalley.com to an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book was hooked my in the first few pages, and I had a tough time putting it down! An eerie, murder mystery that I'll recommend to all lovers of horror and psychological thrillers!

Initial thoughts: "Dathan Auerbach’s novel is creepy but slow. It was one of those that I wanted to finish to find out what happened, but it dragged so much that I ended up skimming a two-thirds of it. The story needs to be cut by a good 100 pages or more to tighten up the narrative and make it a truly impressive novel."

Now: Bad Man is another novel that does not hold up over time very well. The fact that it is such a slow-progressing story does not help matters, as your focus tends to wander while reading it. Plus, I cannot help but feel that the story is either trying to piggyback on another recent release about a bad seed or else is the unfortunate victim of poor timing (to say the title of the other novel would be to give away a huge plot spoiler for this one). While the two stories are very different in narrative and action, their endings are similar. Sadly, Bad Man now has me snorting in derision at the emotional manipulation of the story, while the other novel continues to impress me with its nuances and fodder for discussion.

I received this book in exchange for a honest review from NetGalley.

I have been following Dathan Auerbach since his days posting Pen-pal on the r/nosleep subreddit. I loved Pen-pal and its engaging story. One of the things Auerbach does incredibly well in his writing is he develops an incredible sense of feeling and can make you feel the way that strange and unusual events are impacting the lives of the various characters, Bad Man is no exception. This book has its downfalls in a extremely winding and convoluted plot that at times seems to drone on without end. Many times though that droning has a profound impact on the way that you experience the lives of the characters in this small Floridian town where life just keeps going whether you want it to or not. Overall I really enjoyed the book despite its downfalls because of the deep way that I connected with the characters and their grief and pain.

There’s no shortage of tales, real or fictionalized, in which a precocious child disappears into dark alleys, even darker basements or into the arms of villains only to show up in body bags, on the cover of milk cartons, or smiling from decrepit flyers you can hear flapping in the wind at night. We will always assume they are dead.

That’s what it seems the adults milling about the fringes of *Bad Man*are imagining and something Ben can’t accept. His little brother Eric, whose tiny hands were clasped with Ben’s as they quarreled and careened through the local supermarket and a turned head. One missed moment and we have a missing child and it is that missing moment that will consume young Ben’s life as he turns his hometown upside down looking for Eric.

Author Dan Auerbach’s *Bad Man* is a harrowing account of a boy who refuses to accept that his brother is not alive but still out there, scared and alone. Well… *maybe* alone. Ben walks the streets of his hometown, flyers in hand, knocking on doors, harassing the police who can’t seem to do their job, and taking his frustrations out on his family and new co-workers. Ben makes a pivotal decision to get a night shift at the supermarket where his brother disappeared. This dead-end job proves to be an interesting device for Auerbach’s projected suburban dead end loop filled with rotting red herrings and a cast of characters seem determined to drive Ben to madness.

If Blumhouse has its eyes on what brings kids to the theater then it makes sense their Blumhouse Books imprint would set their sights on Dathan Auerbach, whose Reddit fueled first novel, PenPal, is easily one of the most terrifying and talked about horror novels of the past decade. Yes, I said it. Deal with it. Where Dathan succeeded in scares for that novel, he elevates *Bad Man *emotionally and creates a core character that is suitably as troubled as our times using not an uncommon plot line to spring up in a world where the news is more horrifying than any terror tale. Here the time is spent wisely questioning what happens when you start looking at yourself and your own behavioral pattern in relation to a traumatic event and environment.

Before it’s dizzying cat-and-mouse ending, which for me felt a little scattered and slow despite the switch to action and resolution over the morose and mysterious activities that precede it, *Bad Man* has a lot to say about the way trauma can affect our own judgment and the belief in our own actions.

I have talked about this book in my most recent video. It is in a video where I talk about a lot of things so Bad Man is talked about at 11:50. Unfortunately I did not have a favorable opinion of this book..

https://youtu.be/7QWBw8vCpto

2.5 ⭐️
cw: child abduction, abuse, fat-shaming, racism/slurs
disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for review consideration. All of the opinions presented below are my own.

I’ve been leaning into a lot of spooky reads recently and was very excited at the concept of reading a novel written by someone who was so well-known on r/NoSleep. I was a little worried about someone who was used to shorter fiction writing a novel (not that I know much about Dathan’s writing history besides the blurb on Goodreads). Unfortunately, I do think that the length got the best of him in this one.

The start of the book was nothing short of incredible. The more I read, the more I forgot how strongly it had started, so I’m grateful to past me for making note of that. Dathan is clearly a master of crafting atmospheric environments and did a wonderful job of setting up the story. I almost missed by stop on the train and at one point, while reading on my lunch break, I got spooked by someone walking by my desk in broad daylight.

It began to lose me around the 50% mark. I felt like the story was dragging and I didn’t really feel invested in seeing what would happen next. In fact, I’m not sure I would’ve finished the book if it weren’t an ARC that I felt obligated to read and review. Most of the characters other than Ben, the MC, felt really flat and I had no idea what was going on with the plot. There were also these weird inserts between chapters that, while they made sense in the end, didn’t accomplish much except for pulling me out of the story to roll my eyes.

Ben is also fat and there’s a lot of negative, unchallenged fat-shaming (both from Ben himself and others) that doesn’t feel like it has much of a purpose. Part of Ben’s weight is explained by his disability (a permanent leg injury), but it’s hard to tell whether the author is intentionally fat-shaming or is examining internalized fatphobia. Regardless, as I said, it’s not challenged at any point and may be difficult for readers who find that type of content to be triggering.

I will say that the book picks back up and I tore through the last 25% of it, frantic to know what was going on. I wasn’t quite satisfied by the end, but I think it was pretty well-done. It is absolutely horrific and did send chills through me, because it hits on something that freaks me out a lot personally. There were some things that definitely could have been tidied up, but nothing major.

Overall, it was an ok read. I’m right on the fence between “liked it” and “didn’t like it” and am probably gonna stay there. I think I would’ve liked it a lot more if the middle had been trimmed up and if the author had been able to maintain throughout the atmosphere he conjured at both the beginning and the end. If you think this is going to be your thing, I say go for it, but I’m also not anticipating putting this on any recommendation lists.

I cannot stop thinking about this book. It’s brilliant in its creation of a deeply dark, shadowy, creepy, small-town-secrets atmosphere. In this sense, the atmosphere reminds me of the feeling “House of Leaves” gives me. (Now, I’m not comparing the story to “House of Leaves”, just the incredibly vivid atmospheric quality.) the story itself is decent enough, but, honestly, it’s the depth and clarity of the characters and their interactions with their own circumstances and people around them that really make this book stand out. I can’t tell you how many “horror” books I’ve read that utterly fail at creating a properly scary, oppressive, dark feeling without just going crazy with gratuitous, unfounded violence and perversion. This book just gets right to the creepy feel and doesn’t give us too much extraneous bullshit.

However, I will say if you want a neatly wrapped package of a book, or one that isn’t sometimes slow moving, this won’t be the right one for you. As for me, I loved it. And like I said, still thinking about it - though more specifically, I’m still feeling it and that creepy creepy vibe.

DNF @ 21%

I was so excited about this book because I loved PenPal. Then I looked at some of the reviews for the book and became very concerned. But I quickly discovered those reviews were right.

I lost interest in this very quickly. The first 10-12% was good, but the story did not go anywhere for me. Most of the plot that I read was about the older brother getting a job at the supermarket where his younger brother went missing. It’s so forgettable that I don’t even remember any characters’ names.

Today was the first time I felt compelled to pick the book up in a week, and after one chapter, I knew I was done with this. Maybe I will try it again in the future, but the plot was too slow and did not hold my attention.

This is a great attempt at the horror genre, unfortunately it had a hard time keeping my attention. There felt like there were a lot of filler pages. It got to be too much.

Ben's older brother goes missing while on a trip to the grocery store. Five years later, Ben is still looking for the boy, and ends up taking a job at the store he disappeared at. The characters populating the store are all just a little off in some way, and to make matters worse for Ben, clues to his brother's disappearance begin showing up in the store. I really wanted to like this book. The writing is suspenseful and tight, but the plot's progress is slow and repetitive. Readers may often feel as though they are on the precipice of something substantial only to have it snatched away. Still, I would like to give the author's other book, Penpal, a try, as I truly did enjoy the writing style of Bad Man.

Like "Penpal" before it, Dathan Auerbach has created another creepy, atmospheric story that will have you wondering what that creaking was just outside your door...make you want to sleep with a night light on...and hope you have a nightmareless sleep! To say anything else would just do a disservice. Go in knowing nothing but the plot and then disappear into the story.

Bad Man, by Dathan Auerbach, follows the story of Ben who loses his brother, Eric, at a grocery store one afternoon. Flash forward to five years in the future and Ben has not given up hope in finding his brother and starts working at that same grocery store! Ben can sense something is wrong with the store, or the employees, or even the townspeople… he knows he is on the right path to discovering the truth of his brother.

The first few pages in this book are straight fire and hooked me in right away. I had a sense of excitement that this book was going to be an instant 5-star read. I started having all kinds of nostalgia vibes of me and my older brother when we were younger. We would play games and annoy each other just like Ben and Eric. You get a sense of the relationship between the two brothers and you can start to learn just how much the vanishing of young Eric affects Ben and his family life. But after Eric’s disappearance things go a little downhill…

For starters, I felt saturated with the inner workings and description of a grocery store. I have been in one… quite a few actually… and many times. I did not need all the drawn out details of the store. We get introduced to some of Ben’s new co-workers, but as the pages keep turning, I found myself forgetting all about the plot line of the vanishing brother and wondering where the heck this was going. Was my time just being wasted?

Once you pass the halfway mark in the book, it seems the story gets a little more on track to what you expect it to be about. You start to think maybe there will be some answers coming and some plot twists and less grocery store descriptions and long, semi-meaningless conversations between Ben and his co-workers that add what to the plot? I am not sure if it’s just to throw all these red herrings our way or what, but it didn’t work for me.

And when the fate of Eric is revealed, it just seems rushed and almost under-explained. After hundreds of pages, that was what we get? Then the book just ends. It’s all just a little jumbled up at the end. I think the book could have been at LEAST 100 pages shorter and been just as effective if not more effective. The amount of time the book focused on things that were just totally unrelated to what is happening can be wiped out. I had higher hopes for this one because the synopsis sounded so good. But 400 pages is just too long of a book for the way this one panned out in my opinion…

Also, I went into this book expecting it to be a horror novel. It was definitely more of a mystery/suspense book and read as such. It gets 3 out of 5 stars from me.

Dathan Auerbach writes extremely well and I want to check out his first book, Penpal, as well as keep an open eye for his future works. Thank you to Doubleday for providing the Night Worms this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

In some ways, feels more like a first novel than the author's first novel. Some fascinating ideas, but a rambling execution. This author could go a long way with the right kind of editor involvement.

BAD MAN is the first book I have read by Nathan Auerbach. This novel is not one I'd actually classify as "horror", although some of the elements--emotionally speaking==were horrific. Anyone who's ever had a child would find the disappearance of one so young, heartbreaking. Ben was with his younger brother, Eric, when he went missing.

He never stopping looking for him.

What follows is more of a mystery that crosses over into "fantasy", at times, in my opinion. Although I did enjoy the writing style, there were times when I realized I was reading through just to get to the the end and final solution. The unreliable narrator has always been hit-or-miss for me, and in this case I think it just missed the mark. There were also a lot of what I considered "unnecessary" details that seemed put in simply to amp up the page count. Had this been trimmed down by 100 pages or so, it might have kept my interest more so.

While this book wasn't for me, personally, I think that it may hit the mark with others (looking more for a missing persons story) more.

This was pretty good! I wish it hadn't been quite so slow - a fair chunk of it seemed to be filler, and could have been omitted to make the experience of reading a bit more smooth. The story itself though was really interesting and creepy! I love Dathan's writing and enjoyed Penpal as well, so I knew I'd like this going into it.

To be most accurate, Dathan Auerbach's Bad Man is a good 3.5 star rating for me. Two children stumbling upon a body is where we begin this tale. Who's body we're unaware of at the time but there's much speculation once we get into the girth of the story.

Ben is charged with going to get groceries for the family with his young brother Eric. As he and Eric shop for their belongings, the younger of the two needs to use the bathroom. After a mishap with Eric's stuffed animal in an effort to clean him, Ben looks up to find that his younger brother has disappeared.

Everyone's worse nightmare is to lose their child anywhere especially with the amount of crazies in the world. Imagine being a young boy and carrying the guilt of the loss with you everywhere you go?

Bad Man skips ahead five years and continues with Ben looking for his lost little brother. He receives a job in the very grocery store that he lost Eric in. Against his (and his parents') better judgement, he works the night shift stocking the shelves. Ben hopes he might find something he may have missed over the years.

Ultimately, what kept me drawn into this novel is not only the hope that Ben finds Eric, but it is Ben and his incredible drive. He's an overweight kid with a bad leg as a result of a car crash. At times this handicap renders him almost useless, but he finds a way to persevere. He walks miles and miles knocking on doors, talking to neighbors, even breaking into places where his brother might be hidden.

There's not a day that goes by that Ben isn't haunted with Eric's ghost...

This also leaves us readers with trying to decipher between what's real and isn't. There were many moments I figured that Ben was going through some sort of psychological breakdown and that things were definitely looking strange. Even with this title being touted as horror, I didn't get that element of suspense or supernatural until a little later in the novel but by then I was over it.

Auerbach does a great job of introducing a sympathetic protagonist that carries the weight of the story for so long that I wanted him to be just taken out of his misery. I guess it was my misery as well. Is Eric alive? Will he be found? All signs point to some crazy places but I just need to know. This is my gripe. The anticipation of the ending only to be left with an unfulfilled feeling. There's a big plot twist that I feel was never really explained or explored. Yes going that route of the plot twist may have seemed obvious, but you can't put miscellaneous information out there and expect readers like me not to wonder what happened to it.

Essentially, Dathan Auerbach's Bad Man is an interesting and compelling read. Although I wasn't too happy with the ending, taking this journey with anyone else. His drive and determination kept me hooked. I felt that Ben didn't deserve the hardships he'd been dealt and I hoped that he would be OK. Please read to find out if he is OK...

Copy Provided by Doubleday Books via Netgalley

Bad Man was such an interesting, twisty book that made me uncomfortable, nervous, and even parts that made me extremely mad. When Ben takes Eric to the store and Eric eventually disappears, the cast of characters that come forward were all so bizarre in their own ways. After Eric goes missing and Ben decides to take a job at the same place his brother went missing from, we can see him slowly developing more and more mental issues, trying to figure out what has happened to his brother, how much of it is his fault, and why the people around him are acting strangely. I really enjoyed this book, and I even enjoyed how on edge it made me feel. The ending left me with my mouth hanging open because I could not believe what I was reading. The tension and drama in Bad Man kept me hooked!

Bad Man is exactly the type of “family drama” horror that feels relevant and fresh today. The cast of characters were raw and true. These are not glamourous individuals. But they are people I was compelled to follow and be interestes in. Auerbach gives us some disturbing imagery that I can still “see” out of the corner of my eye. I am excited to follow this author’s career to any creepy place he wants to go.

As a long-time browser of r/NoSleep and fan of Dathan’s work, when I learned that Bad Man was being released, I was so excited. To learn that he was coming out with his first ever full-length novel—and his first new work in way too long—had me rushing to request this one, and I was beyond excited when I was approved for an ARC. That said, the end result left me with some very mixed thoughts about the execution of this story.

"He’s not coming home. It was the only echo that seemed to get louder over time, and Ben couldn’t deny that it had changed him, worn him down."

First, let me say that if you find yourself particularly susceptible to stories about child abduction, proceed with caution on this one. As a mother to a two-year-old, I rarely pick up books about kidnappings because they tend to wreak havoc on my emotional wellbeing, but since it was Dathan writing this one, I decided to give it a chance. While I never felt like I needed to DNF it, there were a few times where I had to put down my e-reader and do something else for a while, and I definitely shed a few tears (and cuddled my kiddo a lot in between chapters). The best execution of the entire storyline is the grief, and it is just written out so flawlessly that you can’t help but feel your heart break right alongside Ben’s.

"The sound was what Ben noticed the most. There was so much less to hear now, but Ben still listened."

The rest of the book’s various facets left me feeling ambivalent, frankly. It seemed as though every individual aspect to the storytelling just took things a little too far: the atmosphere was magnificently immersive until it became too repetitive, the red herrings were a whirlwind until they became too unreliable, and the unreliability of Ben’s narrative was a tremendous source of suspense until it began to feel like plot holes. More than anything, the slow burn of the story’s buildup was perfect for creating a nauseating sense of dread, until it reached a length at which I found myself simply ready for it to hurry up and end. Each of these complaints boil down to one thing: if this book had been 50-100 pages shorter, I bet it would have been a perfect 5-star read for me.

"Every person has a day that transforms trust into a choice, when he learns that people lie for reasons all their own."

All of that aside, it was obviously still an enjoyable read; that 3-star rating is more of a 3.5, and there were a lot of lesser aspects that I thought were great touches of detail. Ben is disabled and overweight, and while there is a bit of fat-shaming and ableism in regards to both of these things, I enjoyed the complexity it lent to his overall struggles and the back story he eventually came around to giving, explaining how he received his injury, and what that lack of mobility did to the rest of his daily life experiences.

"I’ll never leave you, Ben’s heart sobbed. Tell him. Tell him that I’ll stay with him forever. Even if that means neither of us can never ever leave, I’ll stay."

Was Bad Man a perfect read? No. It’s lengthy, it misses opportunities left and right, and to be totally fair, the ending left me with a sense of dissatisfaction that I haven’t been able to shake in the days since I finished reading it. Regardless, Dathan has a knack for plot lines and creepy settings, and my slightly lackluster response to this story will absolutely not slow me down when it comes time to reach for his next release, whenever that may be.

Content warnings for child abduction, abuse, fat shaming, ableism, substance addiction, racism, brief slur usage

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to Doubleday Books for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!