Vaudeville is a horror story in the vein of Are You Afraid of the Dark or Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It has moments that feel scary but at the end of the day it isn't too terrifying. The book itself feels as if it couldn't decide if it wanted to be a story for a teen or a middle grade audience so at times it felt like it was a bit watered down for what the story was trying to tell. None of this took away from the story, a tale of grief as the main character tries to come to terms with the fact that his father was found dead in the woods outside of town. From my understanding this was published as a short story, it is obvious ass there just isn't a lot of detail about what is going on. There is a throwaway line about a photo of a circus troupe that becomes far more important than the one line would have you believe. At times the story feels rushed, especially the ending which is where all the action is. Overall the story isn't bad it just suffers from a lack of understanding of itself and a bit of pacing issues. I would still recommend this for children who like things a bit darker like Goosebumps.

I’m a sucker for the carnival feel and this one nailed that charming folk feel. Unfortunately it doesn’t stick the landing.

Cute, simple story that almost reads like a Halloween folktale of sorts. I'll admit that I'm a sucker for circus/fair/clown/etc-centered horror, so this very much appealed to me. It's a quick read, and flows nicely.

However, the latter half really wasn't to my taste, especially not the ending. Still a fairly enjoyable little read.

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

Greg Chapman has a style all his own. His influences show in his storytelling. I catch glimpses of Laymon, in his work, which I intend to be a compliment. He's quickly becoming a go to author for me. I look forward to reading more of his work. His Novellas are pure delightful, scary fun!!!

I’ve actually read the author’s Bram Stoker nominated debut and enjoyed it at the time. And then completely forgot about it. And then got intrigued by a new scary novella on Netgalley and grabbed it. And then was completely put off by the quality of it. And then went on GR to create a listing for it (once again doing the publisher’s or the author’s job) and made the connection and went WTF.
Seriously, how are those two from the same author? Maybe Vaudeville was written earlier before he got a chance to build up his chops, but, if so, that’s a stunning leap, because this novella was pretty much just a pile of doodoo. Not a steaming pile and fortunately not a very large one, but still…
The premise was what intrigued me, Vaudeville is entirely too close to a circus and I can never pass up a circus story. But if there was ever a circus story to pass up, this is it. It features a kid lead, but many scary tales do, this one, however also read as if it was written for a child, like a stunningly brutal children story, sans morals or quality. Which is to say the writing is that basic. Like someone is just putting words together around an, again all too basic, plot and infusing them with some twee sentimentality. The entire production is trite to the extreme and should be avoided.
I’ve grabbed random kindle freebies from complete unknown that features superior writing and plotting that this, it’s almost unthinkable that a Bram Stoker nominee should have spouted this gory crapfest. Certainly unconscionable. The only good thing about this story is that it has the decency to end in 53 pages, making it a thoroughly disappointing but at least a brief read. Thanks Netgalley.