found this to be a really chilling tale. I have been looking for a lot more horror and thriller books and this is just what I needed. I would give this book a 4/5 since it satisfied what I was looking for.

Smithy was a pretty interesting story. I really enjoyed the format, because it was different than most books. The book was written in journal entries and film clips, rather than a standard story format. Smithy is a chimpanzee that lives with a bunch of students during the course of the book. They are conducting a scientific study to see if chimps are capable of learning to communicate. Strange incidents start happening in the house they are living in and with Smithy. It turns out the house has a ghostly past.

My biggest issue with this book is it was very anti climatic. I felt that the book was leading up to some really big ending, but we never really found out anything. I definitely would have preferred some really neat twist or something at the end, but it was just subpar.

Set in 1974, in a run down mansion, this book immediately caught my interest. Surrounded by the palatial summer homes of the ultra wealthy, a group of college students are conducting a research experiment with a young chimpanzee. He's been raised in a family setting and now they'll be teaching him sign language in an effort to document his intelligence and his ability to communicate. Last used as a private boarding school, most of the large building has been sealed off due to safety concerns. It's dark and creaky and prone to unexplained fires that they blame on the old wiring. Told through letters and research videos and excerpts from books written long after the actual events, the story build slowly. Once the worst happened, it wasn't as nightmarish as I'd expected it to be, but the book itself was interesting enough that I didn't mind that it never got actually scary.

An interesting read about a subject that I had never considered. It was pretty creepy. Great for readers of the paranormal.

Isn't it funny how sometimes themes converge? I've not even thought about the ethically dodgy, sensationalist psychology experiments of the 1970s since my quickly aborted foray into Psychology at AS level, nearly twenty years ago. Then I discover and love the You're Wrong About podcast episodes on the Stanford experiment. Then I discover The Stanford Experiment movie on Netflix. And finally I pick up this gem of a book, based around a fictional psychology and linguistic experiment in the same sensationalist vein.

Smithy is about a fictional experiment in which a group of largely unsupervised students move in with a chimp and attempt to teach him sign language. The story is written in the form of diary entries, letters, descriptions of found footage and excerpts from interviews. The experiment is carried out in an old Newport mansion where things go bump in the night, and as one might expect, it's not long before things start to go horribly wrong.

Being a fan of the gothic, I really enjoy when the reader is very clued in to the idea that a story's characters are in for a lot of trouble, while the characters themselves remain oblivious. Smithy provided this in spades, as not long in, Smithy starts signing 'woman' as the students point at chairs or doorways, and becomes agitated when he signs 'dark woman'. My hat comes off to Desiree for managing to keep the students so oblivious for such a long time, as it provides somehow both a feeling of dread and humour. As in teenage slasher films, you're left yelling, "Oh my god, it's a ghost, you idiots!" as the six very intellectual students come up with a variety of very tenuous hypotheses to explain Smithy's odd behaviour.

The form of the writing -- the various found documents, interviews and footage -- tell the story incredibly well. Although this is a favourite method of storytelling for me, as demonstrated by my love for Sarah Lotz's The Three and Day Four. The style means that we really get to know all of the student characters, and just enough about the leading professor to know just what a dick he is. The students are very well realised. I felt like I knew each of them equally, and really felt for them by the end as it becomes clear exactly how out of their depth they are.

If you're looking for a tidy ending, however, this may not be the story for you. The TV show Unsolved Mysteries is referenced during one of the interview excerpts, and this is very much the feeling at the end of this story. Although we are given glimpses of the characters as adults in their retrospective interviews, the final decision on what happened in that Newport mansions is left wholly up to the reader to determine. Personally I liked this -- I do love a bit of ambiguity -- but some readers may find it frustrating.

Smithy is an entertaining horror read, providing plenty of creeping dread and eventual gore. The author takes great delight in winking at the reader behind her character's backs in a way that creates both fun and fear. I highly recommend.

With many thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the e-advanced review copy.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

I finished this book a couple of days ago and greatly enjoyed it. Smithy is a period piece; it takes place in the 70s and centers on a language study with a chimp. A Yale professor (and serial womanizer) brings together a group of grad students and undergrads from various disciplines to take part in a study that aims to show apes are capable of communication--human communication, of course. One of his grad student assistants helms the study, because he is too busy swanning around getting grants, teaching, and being far too hands-off for such a study. Another grad student films everything. But none of the students are even remotely qualified to be handling a chimp, even one that does love them.

Everything starts out fine. Wanda, the study leader, is officious and strict and has everything carefully planned. Jeff films everything and loves the chimp, named Webster formally and Smithy familiarly, like his own baby. Gail is a freshman from MO who is perky and cute and woefully under-qualified for such a study, because she's never really had much college experience at all, never mind chimp-rearing experience. Tammy and Eric are both older students with knowledge of child development, and Ruby is a clever junior from a Scranton community college. The man who gathered them, Piers, lets Wanda run the show for him. He really only appears in emergencies or when it's convenient for him; in the case of emergencies, he very seldom feels empathy or offers truly constructive ideas, because he's so far removed from everyone. He's the type of person who smokes in front of Smithy the chimp because he wants to, even thought it bothers Smithy.

Obviously, I didn't like Piers. But I digress.

The students are more interesting anyway. We watch them all grow closer together and closer to Smithy. Ruby and Jeff start dating. Eric has fiascos off page with Wanda and Gail. As with any group of people brought into intimacy with one another, drama ensues. But they all adore Smithy. To their detriment. They idealize him far too much for far too long. Yes, he's closely related to humans. Yes, he's highly intelligent. Yes, he actually CAN communicate.

But they don't know how well at first. Nor do they realize they might not be alone in the old house Piers has rented for the study.

When Smithy starts signing woman constantly, they students think he's making a mistake. They don't realize that perhaps he sees something. He begins signing "dark woman." Even when random fires start, when the strange things start happening, the students take a while to realize something strange is going on.

The haunting is fairly subtle and ambiguous at times. Most of the book details interactions with Smithy, or his strange behavior. One by one, each student begins to have a strange experience. Except for a couple. But more and more strange events pile up until the house starts to fall apart, and Smithy is acting OUT on people.

I'm definitely on Team Eric here. There is almost enough ambiguity with the events of the book to question whether or not something supernatural is going on. But I almost always go for the supernatural explanation, which fits best in Newport, RI.

That being said, I almost could have used more. This book was enjoyable and interesting. So interesting. What we didn't know about animal behavior and intelligence back then! It's fascinating to see how lax things were in some ways, how uncertain humans were of the intelligence of other animals. And how cruelly those animals could be treated by Academia. And how disorganized it could be.

The ending climaxes and that peters out slowly as the house falls apart. It's depressing to watch happen. And the end. The end is actually heartbreaking. We haven't come nearly far enough.

While I was excited by the premise of this book, it ultimately fell flat for me. Although the atmosphere was foreboding at times, it was short on true scares. I also felt that the tension was weighed down by long periods of nothing happening; in general, the book just felt too long and I was glad to finally reach the end... which in itself was a bit disappointing. There's all this lead-up to and hinting about some horrible, tragic event that turns out to be far less horrifying than I'd imagined.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ebook copy in exchange for an honest review!

If the Blair Witch was a ghost on a farm and the only person who could see her is a monkey.....and if it wasn't 'found film' but documents, reports, letters, etc....then you have Smithy.

This book is INSANELY weird....and I loved it. It's written differently, more than any other book I've ever read. While this could have absolutely used some editing (500 pages....for real?), it's still a story that draws you in and makes you so curious.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I liked the premise and the writing. It was beautifully done, but in the end, the epistolary style of letters sent by the researchers just was too much for me. I like found footage and letters in small amounts, but the whole book revolved around it. I liked the horror and suspense, and even though this book wasn't my favorite, I'd still recommend it to friends who do enjoy the epitolary aspect.

What an interesting book! I really enjoyed this haunted tale!
1972, renowned researcher Dr. Piers Preis-Herald brought together a group of collegiate researchers to study the inner lives of man's closest relative--primates.
The pacing was good! writing was great! And characters were ok!

Many thanks to the author and publisher for the ARC. I really enjoyed this book!

A spooky haunted house tale with a side of chimp and American Sign Language, written in epistolary style.

A group of Ivy League researchers conduct a groundbreaking study to determine how much animals, in particular a chimp called "Smithy" (short for Wordsmith), can master human language. The lead researcher, Dr Piers Preis-Herald, figured that a "mock family" environment would be the best method for this experiment, and found the "perfect" place with a "rich" history. However, many random occurrences that couldn't be explained by science started happening, and the researchers were baffled. Is the house more than it seems or did everyone imagine everything?

Initially, I was a little apprehensive about the novel's style of writing; there are six distinct narrations told by the six researchers, written in letter, diary, and bulletin board announcement forms. However, as the story progresses and you notice the little quirks of each character—including intentional typos—which are also done in different fonts, you get used to it.

I thoroughly enjoyed the interactions between the humans and Smithy. However, I suppose one of the disadvantages with this kind of writing is that you can't really explore the narration from a different perspective, i.e., Smithy's own experience of being in the house, as "told" by Smithy.

Welcome to the sleeper horror hit of 2021. Smithy is a rare animal: a debut novel handled with such panache that it fully deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the genre giants it so gleefully echoes.

Written entirely in epistolary form, Smithy the story of a group of Yale researchers attempting to teach a newborn chimp American Sign Language to prove a hypothesis that a non-human animal could express complex ideas if brought up in a setting that would encourage communication from a young age. Moving to Trevor Hall, a historic and run down mansion in Newport, the small group includes well known researcher Piers Preis-Herald, his assistant/proxy group leader Wanda, cameraman Jeff, and students Gail, Eric, Tammy, and Ruby. Much of the plot early on revolves around the group setting boundaries, expectations, and a routine for Smithy as they teach him new words in ASL each week and observe his growing ability to interact with environment and his companions. However, tensions and complications soon begin to rise within the group, as egos start to clash and disorganization soon sets in as Piers-Herald increasingly spends time away from Trevor Hall and delegates leadership to Wanda, who proves to be a rigid and unpopular leader. Smithy, growing in both strength and intelligence as time goes on also tests the group with frequent tantrums and erratic behavior in certain rooms in Trevor Hall. The group soon notices a bizarre tendency in Smithy to mistakenly make the sign for "woman" when they are pointing to innocuous things like an empty chair or a doorway, believing the chimp to be confused or acting out.

For such a lengthy book told in a relatively unconventional form, Amanda Desiree does a fabulous job by giving each of the characters a unique and discernable voice. This is done predominantly through the journal entries and research notes that detail the slow degradation of both the group and the study as conflict and unexplained occurrences begin to mount. The atmosphere of anticipatory dread remains strong throughout...it's not an exaggeration to say that this story stayed on my mind long after each time I closed it for the night as I pondered what was to come next for Smithy and his group of researchers.

The "haunted house" is perhaps one of the oldest and most worn of the horror tropes, and yet, it remains in my mind one of the ones that still retains the most potential in the hands of a capable and creative storyteller. There will never be a time where people won't look at an old, creepy house and wonder if it's haunted. It's ingrained in us to fear the unknown, the dark room, the locked attic. While there are plenty of tired paint-by-numbers stories on bookshelves, the trope is also home to a multitude of classics. Smithy is in a lot of ways indebted to the best of these, Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House. A few of the characters here are nearly dead ringers for those in Hill House, most notably Gail/Eleanor and Piers-Herald/Dr. Montague and the slow burning subtlety of the terror is similar as well. What allows Smithy to stand on its own is the ambition and intention to build upon what's come before instead of merely aping it. That's what's so impressive about what Desiree has done here. Smithy takes the trope and adds something completely different and unique to it. The result is a breath of fresh air for the genre and quite frankly the introduction of an exciting new voice on the horror scene.

**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Inkshares.**

2.5 stars
When I read the premise of this horror book, I was very intrigued.
A chimp study, a possibly haunted house, an epistolary format (diary entries, letters, video transcripts), sign me up!
I started off enjoying this slow burn but then it fizzled out for me.
There were a couple of chilling moments and some episodes which could have been quite scary, but it didn't come across like that because of the epistolary format. In fact, the major occurrences aren't related by the people who experienced them, but by observers, so they aren't as impactful.
I was expecting the tension to keep on building and for things to get crazier but after each unusual event, things would settle down, and weeks or months would pass by without incident.
I didn't really care for the characters either. Many were either despicable or annoying and despite the fact that the research assistants were young (undergraduate/graduate students), they seemed quite immature to me. Some of their actions could maybe be explained by the fact that this takes place in the 1970s. I don't think that this is being marketed as a young adult book, but I feel that it could appeal more to a younger audience.
Despite the fact that this is a fairly long book and is a slow burn, it was a quick and easy read and I enjoyed some of the moments. If you want a cozier horror/mystery, you might enjoy this one.

"In the tumultuous summer of 1974, in the shadowy rooms of a rundown mansion in Rhode Island, renowned psychologist Dr. Piers Preis-Herald brings together a group of seven collegiate researchers to study the inner lives of man's closest relative - the primate. They set out to teach their subject, who would eventually be known to the world as Smithy, American Sign Language. But as the summer deepens and the history of the mansion manifests, the messages signed by their research subject become increasing spectral.

Nearly twenty-five years after the Smithy Project ended in tragedy at Trevor Hall, questions remain: Was Smithy a hoax? A clever mimic? A Rorschach projection of humanity's greatest hopes and fears? Or was he indeed what devotees of metaphysics have claimed for so long: a link between our world and the next?"

This is like my dream, a Gothic Michael Crichton-esque book!

This hauntingly original story was a slow slow burn. I enjoyed the mixture of writing (a documentary style interview, memos, video transcripts, journal entries, etc). The delivery of the story utilizing the various “documents” enhanced the reality of the story and gave it a Blair Witch/Conjuring vibe. There was a perfect amount of supernatural elements I just wish the story gave a little more clarity regarding the origin of the events. I also think the book could have been shortened extensively since a lot of it seemed repetitive. But, that being said - I think this would make a fantastic movie!! if you are looking for a truly unique, documentary-styled experiment involving paranormal events - you must read this.

Thanks to NetGalley and Inkshares for this ARC!
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Did I expect to love a ghost story that included a monkey as much as I did? No. However, I also wasn't expecting a book like Smithy. I loved the way it was written, in journal entries, and glimpses of found footage a la Blair Witch Project. It includes the writing of all the main characters, as well as outside sources, which made for a really interesting read. It added depth, and allowed you to feel the tension building, both your own, and those of the characters.

The story starts out as a grandiose research project, trying to teach a sweet chimpanzee named Webster (fondly nicknamed Smithy) sign language in a home setting, and slowly devolves as something dark and sinister settles over everything inside Trevor Hall.

Amanda Desiree definitely knows how to draw out the suspense, and that was one of my favorite things about this book. Keep with it until the end, and you won't be disappointed.

Smithy

[Blurb goes here]

I downloaded quite a few books from NetGalley four weeks ago. Either Science Fiction or Horror. I read the blurbs, and the spoiler free reviews. By the time I got to "Smithy", I already forgot what it was about. Turning it, into a surprising and wonderful ride.

At first I was a bit disoriented, the writing style of the book was something I wasn't used to. The book is kind of a compendium, a beautiful written compendium with rich characters and a truly scary story. First time in years I felt chills, the hairs in my arm standing up. Why call it a compendium, though? The story is told using excerpts from letters, diaries, video and audio tapes, and also interviews, all from different undergraduates of both sexes, conducting a chimpanzee study in the nineteen seventies, over the span of a year. The goal of the study is to teach sign language to Webster, aka Smithy, as he's lovingly called by the students.

Smithy is, at first adopted by a sign language speaking family, and later on, taken to a run down mansion in Rhode Island, where the twenty something years old students are waiting form him, ready to teach the little primate to express as complex ideas as he is able to. Smithy's behavior soon starts to deteriorate. First with small tantrums, but as time progresses and Smithy grows, the tantrums turn into something more dangerous. How can a sweet chimpanzee turn into a beast in only a year? Is it his nature? Is it the students? Is it the environment in the old mansion? The students suspect something is amiss, but their theories keep getting chastised by the often absent expert leading the study, and by his beautiful assistant, the woman who's really in charge of the experiment.

I wont ruin the book for you hinting at something that you are guaranteed to enjoy discovering for yourself.

In spite of the ending, which I found to be unsatisfactory (maybe there's a sequel coming?), I highly recommend Smithy. I loved the originality of Amanda Desiree's writing style, loved the story, and truly enjoyed the scares, chills and thrills of the ride.

Thank you for the advanced copy!

Before I get into my review for “Smithy”, I should point out that I get a little worn out by the whole found footage technique, especially when it comes to novelized horror. I try to remain unbiased, however, as there have been a few surprises with shorter stories regarding this style.

Dr. Preis-Herald, a psychologist/primate specialist, rounds up a diverse crowd of students, a film crew, and other individuals to document the human characteristics and behavior of Webster (or Smithy), a chimpanzee. They are summoned to a Rhode Island mansion to study the chimp, This is the most intriguing aspect of the novel. The house has an evocative past, and with the story taking place in the 1970s, there’s a post-Camelot way of American life. Families no longer return to their coastal summer retreats, the beaches are deserted.

Sadly, this is the strongest feature found in the enduring plot of “Smithy.” The writing is overindulge with letters, scripts, and recollections summarizing the straining efforts of kidnapping a monkey and teaching him sign language in a haunted house. The characters aren’t particularly attractive, either, and the cameraman was the biggest pest.

There’s a complicated hoax hidden somewhere between the pages, which is supposedly a scary feature, but there just isn’t enough suspense or buildup to uncover this payoff.

Thanks to NetGalley and Inkshares for providing me with a free e-ARC for my honest review.

Believe me when I tell you that this book was so much more than I expected (in all the best ways)! We begin with our highly respected researcher, Dr. Piers Preis-Harold as he recruits students with varying skill sets to observe and teach sign language to a chimpanzee named Webster/Smithy. This group will live together in an old, rundown mansion as to provide a more family-like setting to hopefully allow Webster proper stability. What follows is one of the best slow burning stories I’ve read in a long while.

We all know old mansions have history. We also have been told that animals are often aware of things well before humans, be it storms or spirits. We will follow our group via journals, diary entries, and video logs as they deal with increasingly scary situations. I really enjoyed this format and thought it was a perfect way to tell this story. There are a few characters that I absolutely loathed, but the author was great about showing different facets of why they might behave a certain way. I would 100% recommend this book.

Thank you to Inkshares, Amanda Desiree, and NetGalley for an eARC of this book in return for an honest review!

Smithy by Amanda Desiree is a very subtle book. It is an epistolary novel, that is, it is composed of reports, diary entries, letters, interviews and transcripts which together provide the narrative. The subject matter of the novel is an experiment that took place at Trevor Hall, an old, sprawling dilapidated mansion where a group of grad students and a professor explored the possibilities of teaching sign language to a baby chimpanzee. The author ably constructs the intricate, daily routine of the house while weaving in a sense of unease through very small unusual elements. The subtlety lies in the ambiguity of the strangeness - accidents, or something else?

Smithy is the chimpanzee, though his real name is Webster, but the affectionate Smithy became the term of common usage in the novel. With him, we are introduced to a cast of students who live and work with him/. At first, things go well, as the characters are entranced by the huge mansion they are living in. A bit of time is spent on introducing the cast and indicating their different personalities. A significant portion of the first part of the book is spent in discussing the first phase of the experiment - sign language training and the mostly positive experience of the characters with Smithy. The epistolary style helps, as it presents the reader with a range of points of view - from the developments of the project through bulletin board entries, to the internal monologue of characters through letters and diary entries. Occasionally later interviews and book excerpts are spliced in to lend flashes of hindsight. As the book progresses, the daily routine is interrupted more and more, in unpredictable ways by a series of small incidents that range from being a bit strange, to unusual, to quite frightening. The scientific temper of the team is strained as these incidents help to open up incipient rifts. As personalities clash, and the inexplicable rears its head, the students and professor have to question their root assumptions.

This is a book about denial. Time and again, the characters are confronted with incidents that question their basic assumptions, including about their own safety. And repeatedly these are ignored. The author uses this element of denial to highlight how expectations about and investment in the project lead to a systematic neglect of basic investigations and precautions.

I really enjoyed this book. The pacing was fairly smooth, the epistolary style lent texture and depth to the story, and the subtlety and ambiguity of the uncanny elements leaves much to the fertile imagination of the reader. Ultimately, many questions are left unanswered, but this is by design. The author presents all the elements needed to paint the full picture, and leaves the brush lying in the open so we may fill in the grey spaces.