I only read part of this book before putting it aside. When I requested it, I had no idea it was over 700 pages. Given the length of the book, I would have expected to be much more consumed by the story by the 50% mark. DNF.

This book gave me literal nightmares! For a book to do that, it has to be powerful. This story was so well written and I felt heavy nostalgia vibes at the beginning of the book. Looking at other reviews, this book has been met with mixed reviews. Yes, it did wane for me toward the end of the book and the ending was a bit disorientating, but I thoughouly enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it.

Nail-biter read! I read in one sitting! I began this book around 8:00 pm and the time flew by so fast, I heard early morning birds singing around 6:30 am! It was that good. A deeply involving story that kept me on a true emotional rollercoaster ride. With the lifelike flawed but likable characters, I became part of the story. What an amazing read. I couldn’t get enough.

Kate Reese and her son Christopher, flees an abusive relationship in the middle of the night and end up in the small community of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania - just one highway in, one highway out.
Everything seems to be going well until Christopher disappears for six days. When Christopher was found, he seems to be a different person – one who doesn’t struggle with reading or learning, helping her mother win the lottery, and a voice that is telling him to build a treehouse in the woods by Christmas, or something terrible may happen to everyone.

I absolutely adored this book! Though it is 700+ pages, the book read very quickly. It had a lot of elements of the supernatural and it is quite scary in some parts. Horror is not my genre but I simply adored this book. Maybe it’s because I loved Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower from 20 years ago and seeing that he is back with this book really piqued my interest.
I am so glad I read this amazing book. I loved every page of this masterpiece.

Thank you Netgalley and Grand Central Pub for the arc ebook copy.

I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone's imagination. - Hunter S. Thompson

When I got this book as an Advanced Reading Copy I did not notice beforehand that it was over 700 pages long. I'm glad I didn't notice because I probably wouldn't have started reading it. And I'm very glad that I read this book.

Most of the book reminded me of a Stephen King horror novel - and that's a good thing in my opinion.

The book starts out with single mom Kate Reese fleeing an abusive boyfriend with her young son Christopher. They end up in a small town in Pennsylvania.

Kate and Christopher live in a motel while Kate tries to get back on her feet. Then Christopher disappears in the nearby woods for six days - and he comes back changed.

The author did a great job with giving us characters to care about. There are many characters and many interlinking stories. The book WAS long but it kept me engrossed all the way through.

This is a story about good and evil and I know (after reading the book) that some readers had issues about how good and evil were portrayed. I actually raised an eyebrow a few times during the story. But I still think this is one of the best horror books I've read. Dive into it remembering it's fiction and you shouldn't have a problem with it.

Highly recommended.

I received this book from Grand Central Publishing through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.

I believe I'm giving this book a 3.5 star rating. Its so hard to rate, because the book was so long (700 pages), and I REALLY enjoyed the first 500 page alot! I couldn't believe how easy it was to get immersed into the story right away, and even though I read this book over a month, it was so easy to pick it back up and jump right back into the story each time.
I LOVED how spooky and frightening this book was! I would love to see it as a movie, and I think a lot of people would enjoy it. The storyline is so original!
I would have totally rated this a little higher, if only those last 200 pages had been good. We get a great plot twist I didn't see coming at page 552, but then after that, the book goes downhill fast. The last 200 pages were very unnecessary, it felt like I was reading the same back and forth storyline over and over again, it was honestly a hot mess. A lot of it didn't make sense and it didn't wrap up the way I would have hoped.
All in all, I would totally read another book by Stephen, and I'm glad I read this one! It was perfect for the halloween season!

This felt like I just read the best collaboration novel from Stephen King, Joe Hill, and Peter Straub.
What a ride!

Creepy, dark, and really messed up, this 700+ page book keep me thoroughly entertained from start to finish. Imagine Stranger Things on steroids.

If you're looking for the perfect spooky book just in time for Halloween, look no further!

ARC provided by NetGalley

Imaginary friend starts off slow and gentle, makes you start to feel a bit uneasy, then takes off like a rollercoaster with no safety belts. I read a bit here and there until I got about a third of the way in (and enjoyed what I was reading), and then couldn't put it down. I had to know what was happening, what was real, what was not, and how it was going to turn out. The book was a little shocking at times, occasionally confusing (temporarily so), but definitely thrilling. All of the apparently separate storylines come together perfectly in the end. It leaves the reader with enough of a question to keep thinking about it long after it ends, but not enough for the ending to be unsatisfying.

This was alright in the sense that there was nothing wrong with it, but the characters were unusually dull. Like, I really can't imagine a world in which I care about what happens to these people.

This is a hard book for me to review. There are so many things that I both liked and disliked about it, but I don’t want to give too much away.

Things I liked: The story is unique and compelling and I couldn’t put it down. The characters are flawed but interesting. Their individual storylines and the dynamics between them all are woven together in a great way.

Things I disliked: The age of the main character (7) just didn’t seem to fit. I have a 5 year old boy and I can’t imagine how a 7 year old boy could do all the things in this book. It would have made a lot more sense to me if Christopher had been around 10. The religious storyline that doesn’t show up until halfway through the book made me a little uncomfortable. The 2nd half of the book also got confusing to me and it was hard to keep it all straight. There was too much going on and it felt like I was reading a completely different book.

Wow! This book had me from the first page to last. I was completely enthralled by this story and it was incredibly creepy. I love that the writer wrote in so much detail about the characters and the story itself. I hadn’t read his previous book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower but I had heard amazing things. When I read the synopsis to this story a knew it was right up my alley. My only drawback was that it was extremely long but I also felt that it allowed the author to put in all the details that he felt needed.

I really wanted to love Imaginary Friend. After reading the synopsis, I was expecting a scary read. Instead, I got a strange, not completely clear, religious diatribe about the devil, angels and possibly the virgin Mary (?). I'm not sure. I mean I think the author was going for a good vs. evil theme. However, it really failed to produce. The book was way too long. There were too many perspectives. Don't get me wrong, the book started out great. Very creepy and I wanted to know more. But somewhere about the midway point, it lost momentum.

I also want to comment on the age of the main character, Christopher, and his friends. I really wish that authors would be more accurate with children's ages and behaviors. There is no way a seven year old would be able to get away with or do the things that these kids did throughout this entire book. There is a scene where the parents drop their second graders off at a hill for sledding and then leave them there for the day with no adult supervision. What parents do that? They all talked more like they were in middle school. Even right down to the way the two "mean" kids in their class acted. Their insults were too mature for seven. I probably would have bought into it more had they been in middle school.

I'm not sure I would really recommend this one. The synopsis really didn't prepare me for all of the religious symbolism. Not that I am opposed to it, I just wasn't really sure what the author's goal was with the book.

This book is unlike anything I've read. The craftsmanship of the writing is unbelievable. While some books that are 700+ pages feel that way, this one flew by. Chilling to the bone. You'll wonder what's imaginary and what's not.

I found this book to be drawn out and tiresome -- not at all what I was expecting, and quite a disappointment.

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky is very different from his first book (Perks of Being a Wallflower) But they’re alike in that they are both full of the horrors families hide everyday - abuse, alcoholism, suicide, bullying.

"A boy disappears into the woods and is never seen again. 50 years later, Christopher is lost in the same woods...but is found after six days. And he's changed. And the nice man is helping him work things out. Because there's something only Christopher can do... )

This book is good vs. evil and full of creepy images. You’ll never look at a deer standing next to the road the same way again. And a full-on Mama Bear. Chbosky takes us on a wild and crazy ride for 720 pages. Well worth your time.

A little too derivative of Stephen King, but really glad I read it. Interesting twist on theology, but as other reviewers have mentioned, a little too lengthy.

This book hooked me from the first page. I loved Kate and her son Christopher and was cheering for a happy ending for them. The story sets up beautifully and then the creep factor sets in until it becomes an all out war of good against evil. I look forward to reading more books by this author.

Did you like Joe Hill’s NOS4A2? If you did, you’re going to dig this terrifying, heartbreaking story about a 7-year old who goes missing in the local woods for six days and returns home with a new friend who may or may not happen to be a figment of his imagination. To say anything else would spoil the fun, but at 700 pages (maybe 100 pages too long) this epic book (think THE SIXTH SENSE meets FRIDAY THE 13th, but with all the character-building and heart we’ve come to expect from Chbosky) far-exceeded expectations and is the perfect creepy fall read. Thanks to my friends at @grandcentralpub for the gifted copy, this one is for sure up there as one of my favorites of the year.

DNFing at 11% which may seem like I didn’t give it a chance but in a 700+ page book, 11% is quite a bit. I was nervous about this book to begin with for all of the obvious reasons, but once I started it, I loved the beginning. It was creepy, had me on the edge of my seat, and then BAM. Nothing. I was bored out of my mind. I found myself picking it up and then after a couple pages, putting it back down. 12 days later, I’m just calling it quits. I have far too many books that I can’t wait to pick up to waste my time on something that can’t hold my attention.

The ending is going to be really polarizing; I think people will either really love it or it won't work for them at all. I'm in the latter camp, but I respect what the author was going for. (I can't even discuss why it didn't work for me because it would be a massive spoiler. Sooooo suffice to say that I think the reader's response will really depend on who they are.)

It's also a bit of a slow burn. It takes a while for it to become scary (seriously about 200 pages or so) and even then, I think the reader's imagination and own fears will be what really propels this from "creepy" into "horror." (It really freaked me out, so be aware of that going in.)

I loved most of this book so much and I hope that I don't have to wait another 20 years to read a new Stephen Chbosky novel.