Thank you to NetGalley and ECW Press for giving me the digital ARC to review!

I was interested in this from the blurb, with the Stranger Things association particularly intriguing. I'd say this is very horror-lite, probably a good jumping point for young adults to get into horror as there's nothing majorly grim or bloody in it. The antagonist was creepy and the whole concept of him was, admittedly, terrifying. I've never read, or seen, this type of creature in any media before, so it was interesting to see something new.

The main character is Vish, a 15-year-old Indian-Canadian boy who has come back to his hometown after 2 years at a boarding school due to his dad's addiction. It's set in 1996, so there's references to things like VHS and old metal bands, which Vish is a fan of. Our other characters include Gisela, a German teenager who knows more about all the strangeness going on, Danny and Matt, Vish's former best friends, and Agastya, an Indian-Canadian bookstore owner who, like Gisela, knows more.

The introduction of the supernatural stuff is quiet, and if I have to be honest...I didn't hugely care for how it was all described. Magic is more like maths and physics, from what I can gather, and there's some confusing descriptions that kind of made my mind shut off sometimes. I wish I had understood it, but I didn't and it made me wonder if this was a bit too high level for young adults if I couldn't understand it well.

The characters themselves were will written and developed, so no issues there, but the whole supernatural side was just too confusing for me to properly understand.

This is a soft horror/ coming of age story with elements of the metaphysical and paranormal that would be an excellent choice for YA or readers that want a spooky/ creepy read without the terror or gore aspects of other books in the genre. I appreciated that the author managed to steer clear of the romantic tropes that tend to go hand in hand with YA fiction and rather focused on some rather mature and topical family dynamics. The characters were well written, believable and ultimately very relatable. The pacing was good and the plot was well thought out. This was a solid stand alone read, but there is just enough wiggle room that I imagine (hope) a sequel will be written as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing me with an ARC of this title free of charge. I am leaving my honest review voluntarily.

The Grimmer is a perfect novel for younger readers or those who want to start reading horror fiction without it being too bloody or extreme.

I loved the relationship of the main family. The feelings of hurt, betrayal, forgiveness, and acceptance were all fully explored and really made you want to root for them.

This book gets into the spooky stuff rather quickly, which is fantastic, and we're all along for this wild scary ride with our main protagonist almost from the get go.

The supernatural antagonist is quite frightening and the author conveyed how absolutely terrifying it would be to run into this thing. With the addition of two other characters with our main protagonist, we're going to learn about magik and spells and other things in a way that hasn't really been written about before.

While I prefer my horror a bit more "raw", I truly enjoyed this story. If you know any younger people or someone who wants to start reading horror fiction without anything extreme, this is definitely a book to recommend.