Weird towns, we love to see them, and I’m always interested when a previously rare book is republished. I was excited for Goblin the premise sounded good, I love novellas, and the idea of interconnected stories that tell a greater narrative about a town is solid. The idea is good, but the execution was lackluster at most and terribly boring at worst.

Happy Birthday, Hunter! was my favorite story of the bunch, the characters and atmosphere are perfect, and the ending was satisfying. A Man in Slices was also decent, while it drags at parts, the idea of having a friend that’s not quite right was well delivered. Even for the stories that I didn’t care for as much, Malerman always succeeds in creating creative plots with some genuinely tense moments that give me pause.

These strengths are bogged down by overwritten stories with often predictable or underwhelming endings. A few had the potential to be really great, I always started off liking many of the stories, but the stories meander so much that the point becomes lost, such as in Kamp and Presto. If I were to be perfectly honest, I was very tempted to not finish this book, each story eventually started to become a slog to get through and I started to lose interest during the last couple of stories. I’ll still read more books by Malerman, but this one just didn’t do it for me.

There is both a familiarity and a deep-rooted sense of fear that settles into the background as one reads GOBLIN. Each of these stories are truly unique and unsettling in wonderfully macabre ways. Describing a work as 'different' is almost a cliche, but with GOBLIN, the word truly applies. These are not average stories in storyline or execution. You really do feel like you've been dropped into a world slightly askew ... where the rules are just a little bit different and uncomfortable.

I loved the dark and twisting stories. Each felt suspenseful and interesting without ever just relying on gore or jump scares. The town of Goblin certainly is infused with a dark mythos, as each of these six stories is set in or around the town. From the very first story, I was at the edge of my seat and I kept trying to guess what was happening and where things might up. I loved every bit of this!

Fans of shows like SABRINA and RIVERDALE would love this, as would fans of timeless horror such as 'SALEM'S LOT, 80s, and folk horror.

If we're lucky, maybe one day we'll get to return to the world of Goblin and see what other stories have been brewing within its supernatural borders.

Goblin is an interesting concept with having several short stories interwoven to make one novel. While not terrifying to this reader, I did find it entertaining and would recommend to fans of this genre.

I enjoyed this ARC book off netgallery. I've read a couple of Josh Malerman books and this book was just as good as his other ones. This book is about 400 pgs and has like 6 stories involving Goblin and its gruesome history. Great book!

3.75 stars, rounded up to four stars for Goodreads and NetGalley.     The author of Bird Box and Unbury Carol brings to life a strange small town called Goblin, a place with a dark history and some very unnatural happenings.  I'm a fan of Malerman's writing, and he does a great job of bringing his characters to life.  I was a bit disappointed with a couple of the endings, but I'm going to chalk that up to my personal tastes rather than the writing.  I was also left wanting more!!  Overall, I recommend taking a trip to Goblin...just watch out for the locals!

A collection of short stories revolving around a weird, unsettling town with weird characters? YES.

This book was so many things and I loved it. Creepy. Strange. Atmospheric. Weird. Unsettling. All of this combined made for an excellent collection of short stories!

The prologue was enough to make this a great book. It kicked right off into eerie, strange territory and it was EXCELLENT. It really set the mood for what was to come and made me intrigued about the town of Goblin. The prologue spooked me, and even thinking about it now, I get goosebumps.

This book is weird, there’s no denying that, and may not be for everyone, but I urge you to give it a chance.

If you love strange small towns and books that are weird and unsettling, then definitely pick this one up!

Goblin is a creepy book that consists of 6 short stories, and reminds me of a horror anthology show like tales from the crypt.

Each story is self contained but all of them are linked and share characters/ locations.

Goblin is a town full of normal people, but there’s evil lurking around pretending to be normal too. In many ways it reminds me of Derry from Stephen King’s books. There’s something not quite right in this town.

While all the stories are unnerving and creepy in their own way, my favorite ones are Presto and A Mix-up at the Zoo.

In Presto, a boy yearns to learn the secrets behind the magic acts done by his favorite performer.

A Mix-Up At The Zoo is about a man named Dirk, who changes his job to become a tour guide in a zoo, which is very different from his older job in a slaughterhouse.

In Goblin, Malerman has successfully created an eerie and dark town, where nothing is as it seems.

It is definitely a book I would recommend for all horror fans especially if they like books by Stephen King.

Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the book for an honest review.

What a creepy town with as equally creepy people. I do not think I would stop in this town, even if I was starving and dehydrated. The police are downright horrifying, the founders guard secrets from younger generations and strange people with bad intentions visit the townsfolk. The story of the magician will stick with me for a looonnggg time. I have never liked small towns ( I lived in one for 3 years...a total nightmare) and would never live in one again.

Josh Malerman has been growing in popularity in large part due to the success of the Netflix adaptation of his hit, Bird Box. Before he sold Bird Box to Ecco/Harper in 2014, he had 14 manuscripts he had finished but never tried to publish.

In the last six years, since the publication of Bird Box, he has published eight novels and three novellas. Goblin was actually one of these, published in 2017 by Earthling Publications as a 500 copy, numbered, special edition. Needless to say, those all sold out years ago. Technically this is a reissue by Random House, but this is also a reissue that needs to exist.

Goblin is a town in Michigan filled with mystery and wonder. It’s supposed to have been a town built on spoiled land. Goblin gets above-average rainfall, buries their dead standing up, has exotic owls and a witch in the North Woods, and is definitely haunted. Malerman breaks this book up into six different novellas with a prologue and epilogue bookend story, every story unfolds more and more about the town of Goblin as it tells the individual stories. Malerman does this in a fantastic way. The first story has the characters take a walk through town to give the readers an idea of the set up. The second story has a historian who tells the origins of the town. The third story tells about the mysterious North Woods, with the Great Owls and the Whispering Witch. The fifth story tells about the attractions at the Hardy Carroll Goblin Zoo, and the sixth story tells about Hedges, a labyrinth tourist attraction built with hedges like the maze at the Overlook Hotel in the film version of The Shining. Not only does every novella add to the myth and lore of Goblin, but they also tell some really great horror stories as well. I loved the tension that builds in every story, and there are a few stories, particularly “Kamp” and “The Hedges” where I had to hurry to read the final sentences so I could stop holding my breath.

The great thing about Goblin being a series of novellas instead of short stories, Malerman has time to make Goblin a town that feels like another character. There is not the urgency of a short story, but there is also the fact that most readers will not like every story but there is an eventual escape coming soon with an ending and the start of another completely different story. Most of these stories are riveting and push me to keep reading, but a few of them just do not fit as well into the collection as others. One of these is the fourth story, “Presto” about a magician that is coming into Goblin for a one-night performance. This story is great as a whole, the mystery of whether or not the magician’s magic is too good for anyone to figure out or if it is really magic, but it does not fit as well into the book as the others because it spends more time with the magician named Roman Emperor than it does with the people of the town. The way that all of the other stories add more to the mystery and history of the town, and the absence of that in this story, really puts a spotlight on this being missed.

As a whole, there are many people who will not want to read this because it is a series of novellas instead of a novel, but it does not feel like a typical short story collection. All the settings interweave, and at the end of this extraordinary book readers will understand Goblin is about a place and its people: a town filled with eccentrics, curses, and mystery.

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I mostly enjoyed the stories in this book about the fictional town of Goblin. It definitely had a very Derry, Maine vibe to it, which I can't help but like! The tiny details that throw back to an earlier story were very cool, but unless I missed some, I would have loved to have more. There was only one story I didn't like very much, and the rest were either good or great. Who knew a description of an owl could creep me out so badly?! I would love to see more of Goblin in the future from Josh Malerman.

This is definitely a dark read. It isn't what I would necessarily call scary but does have a certain quality of creepiness that kept me wanting to find out what was going to happen. There are six novelettes here that can be read as stand alone stories but are tied together, albeit somewhat loosely. Something is amiss in the Town of Goblin and this something has made the place a dismal location. If the mysterious events weren't enough, there are giant owls haunting the woods and it rains almost all the time.
I don't know exactly how I feel about this book. The stories were compelling enough but I felt some of the endings could have been better. As I said, it kept me interested enough to want to finish it but I can't say it was among my all time favorites. Josh Malerman has a strange imagination.

I really loved Malerman's "House at the Bottom of the Lake." I have not read Bird Box yet but definitely want to. This collection of stories was just weird and some novellas were better than others. I liked Presto and Mix-Up at the Zoo, those were creepy AF and written well. The others were just ok to me and starting to get repetitive or did not make sense.

Overall, just ok and definitely a mediocre collection of stories. The town of Goblin was the common theme but some of the novellas were unrealistic and far-fetched. IMO, Presto and Zoo Mix Up were the ones that grabbed me the most. Disappointed after reading House at The Bottom of the Lake, which I loved and rated high.

Somewhat recommended but I would focus on the stronger short stories and I would not read this in order.

Thanks to Netgalley, Josh Malerman and Random House Publishing Group Ballantine Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 5/18/21

This review is for an ARC copy received from Random House Publishing Group.
At this point I have read all of Josh Malerman's novels, and when it's been awhile in between, I forget just how wonderful his writing is until I find myself again ensconced in one of his symphonies of words. This book is different than the usual, as it's six novellas all taking place in the town of Goblin, with slight connections to one another, plus a wraparound story further tying them together. Goblin itself is a prevailing character of sorts, a mystical city that feels a bit like Twin Peaks, but also with magical elements, sinister characters, an unnatural police force and a dark underbelly that ties back to its founding days more than a century before.
With each tale in the book, you learn more of Goblin's past as well as a new and different type of horror. I'm hard-pressed to say which novella I liked best, as for the most part, they were all good in their own ways. Several of them reminded me of Tales from the Darkside or Tales from the Crypt episodes in their presentation. And nearly every one moved along in a way that had you both excited for and dreading where the story would end.
1. A Man in Slices felt like it has the most lyrical language to me, reminding me why I enjoy Malerman's writing so much, and having not read the brief synopsis of it ahead of time, I had no idea where the story was going until it started arriving there.
2. Kamp was a unique psychological horror take about someone so afraid of ghosts scaring him to death, tat fear has taken over his life.
3. Happy Birthday, Hunter!:started off strong, with an interesting party for the town's wealthy and celebrated "Great White Hunter" but to me was the weakest of the tales as I found the end to be anti-climactic.
4. Presto is true dark magic story about a boy who is somewhat of an outsider and lover of magic, and his hero, an outlaw magician whose magical abilities have an insidious nature. Definitely one of my favorites in the book.
5. A Mix-Up at the Zoo is another more psychological horror entry. While not bad, definitely one of the less interesting of the stories.
6. The Hedges revolves around the man, alluded to in nearly every other novella, famous in Goblin for sculpting the city's famous topiaries of its founders as well as others around the town. In this final story, he is forced to go on the run when a young girl discovers the mystery at the center of his unsolvable hedge maze and reports him to the creep Goblin Police. Another of the better tales in the book, this one is the most outre.
Prologue/Epilogue. When introduced in the book, it leaves you wondering just what terrors could this crate with all the mysterious delivery conditions hold. After learning everything about Goblin, the mystery contained within makes absolute sense, and while some elements of the ending are left to the imagination, it concludes the book nicely.
I think the best aspect of the world building Malerman has accomplished in this book is the fact that this is a place with more mysteries hiding, and hopefully he will visit Goblin again in the future.

I enjoyed some of the stories in this collection but the town of Goblin never came alive for me and only one of the stories really stuck with me after.

I received an e-arc of this from the publisher through NetGalley.

Don’t choose this if you’re trying to get out of your reading slump. I haven’t read any other books by Josh Malerman before so I thought this might be a good introduction to his work. I know there was a ton of hype after Bird Box (which I have not seen either) so it made sense to give this title a go. The prologue was okay, it set the tone of an unusually eerie vibe the town has but from there the six subsequent stories were flat and boring. I never became attached to the book, my mind was continually wandering and just put the book down and didn’t pick it up again. I hope this book finds a read who does care about it and is successful.

An anthology book about the residents in a town named Goblin. Goblin is a gloomy rainy place full of history and strange goings on. This book sucks you straight in with it’s opening story about a delivery man given strange top secret instructions to deliver a box to Goblin and to destroy it if delivered late. Each short story introduces a new resident and continuously becomes stranger and stranger throughout. Everything expertly comes together at the right times.

Fans of Twin Peaks and Welcome to Night Vale will truly value this. If Goblin doesn’t become a mini series then there should be a riot and something big on fire.

If you like Stephen King or Ray Bradbury, you'll like this but, more importantly, if you like Josh Malerman, you'll love this.

The King comparison comes from the situating of the various novellas in a single town. In the same way that King has Castle Rock or, probably more aptly, Derry, Mine, Malerman introduces the town of Goblin in this book. Malerman provides an origin story for the town and a full mythology for some of the weirdness and the situations that occur that's very convincing (you'll find yourself Googling names and places) and creates a superb foundation for everything that occurs in these six stories that all seem to culminate in one momentous night. It's a potentially normal town that is anything but - from the atypical weather to the topiary to the wildlife. Nothing's normal there. I would also say that 'Slices' is a very Kingian story - like something you'd expect to find in 'Night Shift' or 'Skeleton Crew.'

As for Ray Bradbury, the sense of foreboding and the setup in one of the 'stories' here is pure Bradbury, something 'magic' this way comes, if you like!

But, as I said, if you loved the weirdness and unsettling nature of Malerman's 'Black Mad Wheel' (especially) and 'A House at the Bottom of a Lake' you'll enjoy this one. Everything is almost normal but is just a few degrees off-kilter and nothing good can come of it.

Grotesque characters and scenarios nudge up against one another throughout the book and those 'easter egg'-like overlaps between chapters are very enjoyable and will, I hope, make for a very strong episodic series on Netflix.

I'm going to re-read this one, something tells me I missed some nuggets as I read it first time around.

Thank you to Random House/Ballantine Publishing and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book!

Goblin is a small town where everyone knows your name and something is always off. Each one the six novellas features a new and strange main character with some kind of odd problem. The prologue describes a delivery driver with an odd delivery and an even odder set of instructions. The prologue hooked me! I couldn't wait to find out what all the drama was but the author made me work for it. Each character and story carried the piece to a larger picture that made up the town of Goblin. Each one filled with small details and interlocking pieces.

I really, really enjoyed Malerman's writing style. This is only the second book written by him that I have read. He has a brilliant way of seamlessly switching voices and styles depending on which character is being focused on. Each of the six novellas that make up this novel are beautifully written, and darkly atmospheric. I found myself deeply anxious during "Kamp" and unsettled and disgusted during "Happy Birthday Hunter". I loved how the constant rain was almost a character itself. It added to the general feeling of dread that permeated the book. Malerman is wonderfully descriptive in a very original way. I did, however, notice a tendency to be long-winded that I didn't notice when I read Bird Box. Those portions of the book were more work than entertaining and made it hard for me to focus on the details. The history of Goblin, provided through different points of view throughout the book, was an interesting story but told in a bit of a tiresome way.

"Goblin" was an entertaining and original book. The interconnected yet different stories that make up this town are mostly a treat to read. I have read plenty of collections of short stories and novellas but this is the first one that has ever gripped me from the beginning to the end, despite its flaws. I intend to go and read Josh Malerman's other books.

Special thanks to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC of six short novellas in exchange for my honest opinion.

Not many people know that I love short stories, and even though novellas are longer than short stories, I have to say that out of the 6 novellas in this book, I rated 1 of them a 3.5, 2 of them a 5, and 3 a solid 4.

In the town of Goblin (some name) you can tell that these stories are haunted, off the wall, strange and right up my alley, for lack of a better expression!

Thank you Random House and NetGalley, it's not often I enjoy almost every story in a book of them!

“THE CITY THAT NEVER STOPS CRYING”

I just finished GOBLIN, A Novel in Six Novellas by Josh Malerman, and I’m still reeling at what he has done with this book. He has intertwined these novellas so cleverly–they all take place in the same city, on the same night where one character's car may backfire, and another character may hear it in “their” novella.

It rains constantly in Goblin, and each of these six novellas tells tales that happen under the relentless rains of Goblin, ‘the city that never stops crying.’ But first, there’s a prologue to welcome the reader and set them in the proper frame of mind. A suspiciously shaped box must be delivered secretly to Goblin between midnight and 12:30–if that window of time can't be met, the container must be destroyed. The job pays well–if nothing goes wrong–but the box has a life of its own. And that sets the tone for this haunting book.

There were moments that resonated with me, that I will remember long after I've put the book away, not always the big moments, but ones the crawled under my skin, the extra bits that Malerman planted deep in the stories.

In “A Man in Slices," the story was about something else. Still, I'll never forget the all-encompassing wetness at the summer camp between the rain and the lake, then Richard’s awful realization that he’d lost track of his friend and everyone’s terror that Charles had probably drowned. They were on the buddy system, so the adults said it was Richard’s fault—and oh, the guilt as they search and look in the water for a drowned boy. I know guilt, don't you? If we come to books to find out that we aren't alone in our feelings, Malerman nailed it, again. “A Man in Slices” was about so many other things, too; this was just a bit.

“Kamp” is delightful horror as it presents the story of a man, a Goblin historian, who gets so tied up in the past that he isn’t paying attention to the present. Maybe not everyone is delighted with horror, but there was that moment when all the bits clicked into place—delightful. Horror. Yes.

“Happy Birthday, Hunter!”– I love owls, and Trachtenbroit's affinity with them is also mine. The tale of Trachtenbroit's discovery of The Great Owls and how he brought them to the North Woods is a fabulous mini-story within the larger story. It is a rare gem set inside this novella that just goes to show how layered the history of Goblin is in this novel, more faceted than I can possibly present in a short review.

I’ll leave you to discover and wonder at “Presto,” “A Mix-Up at the Zoo,” “The Hedges,” and “Epilogue: Make Yourself at Home.” Finally, Glenn Chadbourne's Illustrations are superb, and the one of The Great Owl, which appears at the very end of the book, left me breathless.

Thank you to #NetGalley #RandomHousePublishingGroup #Ballantine #Goblin for the ARC in exchange for my honest feedback; this is it!