This is my first ever Dan Smith book and I loved it. The suspense and drama is everything needed, with graphic descriptions that help picture the scenes.
I am now on the hunt for Dan Smith’s Crooked Oak series to read more of his work.

This story worked really well, I often find shorter stories can be unsatisfying but not with this one. There was a good build up at the start- you knew something bad had happened, but didn’t know what, creating tension. I liked the interviews interspersed throughout the story too. It was a good way to give extra information about what was going on and the different style broke the story up nicely. An exciting, easy read.

Did I have to put this book down at one point because it gave me the creeps?............ Yes I did! Am I an adult? Yes I am! I do not spook easily but there was just something in Dan's writing that gave me the creeps! The story keeps you gripped, yes it is a horror but it also has the element of friendship and coming together. I know that the pupils in the library that I work will love this book as horror is extremely popular and a huge bonus being dyslexia friendly. It will be one that I will recommend to the horror lovers. I can't wait until the next book in the series!

I think the book has a lot of qualities that young readers who like horror might enjoy, like following an organization similar to the SCP, having this weird military experiment going wrong, turning people into alien-like monsters or making the story with a sort of found footage feel with the "top classified" files. I can definitely imagine young kids recomending this series to each other if the next books focus on building a strong consistent and interconected lore in between the main stories. Nothing like some horror theory crafting based on crumbs of lore hahaha.

With all that said, I did find the book a tad too short, even taking into account the fact that it's a book for a younger audience. I remember I used to devour books as a kid. Even a 500+ pages book would last me like 2 days. So less than 200 pages was barely an appetizer for me.

I'm also personally from the idea that too much description takes away from the horror, but if they are going to describe the monsters in detail I think future books would benefit from having drawings of said scary situations (monsters or aliens or whatever it is they plan on talking about) or even some kind of "photo evidence", to go with the found footage "secret files" vibe (like the blurry Bigfoot or Loch Ness monster photos)

Loved this book, really fast paced, very different and unique and really enjoyed every second of reading it!