Dread Wood by Jennifer Killick – A Review by Sam – BLOG TOUR

Release date: 31st March 2022

Publisher: Farshore

Author: Jennifer Killick

Jennifer Killick is the author of Crater Lake, the Alex Sparrow series, and middle-grade sci-fi adventure Mo, Lottie and the Junkers. She regularly visits schools and festivals, and her books have three times been selected for The Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Challenge. She lives in Uxbridge, in a house full of children, animals and Lego. When she isn’t busy mothering or step-mothering (which isn’t often) she loves to read, write and run, as fast as she can.

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Turn the lights on. Lock the door. Things are about to get SERIOUSLY SCARY!

The brand new must-read middle-grade novel from the author of super-spooky Crater Lake. Perfect for 9+ fans of R.L.Stine’s Goosebumps.

It’s basically the worst school detention ever. When classmates (but not mate-mates) Hallie, Angelo, Gustav and Naira are forced to come to school on a SATURDAY, they think things can’t get much worse. But they’re wrong. Things are about to get seriously scary.

What has dragged their teacher underground? Why do the creepy caretakers keeping humming the tune to Itsy Bitsy Spider? And what horrors lurk in the shadows, getting stronger and meaner every minute…? Cut off from help and in danger each time they touch the ground, the gang’s only hope is to work together. But it’s no coincidence that they’re all there on detention. Someone has been watching and plotting and is out for revenge…

I don’t know what I was expecting when I started Dread Wood. I’d just come off the back of reading a genuinely scary sci-fi horror book -which you may hear more about soon-, and that was off the back of reading a not so scary but very atmospheric folk-y horror-y book. This, apart from being middle grade, sits on the other side of the horror spectrum from those two. It’s an attempt to make a monster movie fit into a middle grade novel, and you know what? It works. It doesn’t do any one thing especially well and it has its flaws, but the package as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

For our cast we have Spunky Girl, Cautious Girl, Comedy Relief Guy and Narrator, whose primary character trait seems to be that he’s poor. Speaking as someone who is poor I don’t really mind that. I’ve banged this drum plenty already. More poor characters in our fiction please! Particularly kid’s fiction. And it does affect your personality and your decisions. It does become a part of who you are and filter how you see the world. Being that none of the other characters are particularly deep, I don’t mind that he isn’t. Then we’ve got our antagonists who aren’t not cliche, but who are effective none the less. The setting is nice and claustrophobic, as all good horror settings have to be, if the characters can just walk away it ruins the plot somewhat. A locked gate and a groundskeeper who doesn’t want to let you out are as good a narrative device as any other. 

There’s some light spoilers incoming at this point, so if you want to avoid them I’ll give you a takeaway now: I liked this book, it was good dumb fun, written well and compellingly. The plot moved along at a good clip and the tension started nice and early. Flat but serviceable characters. Probably won’t read again, but enjoyed it a lot all the same. Three and a half stars. Maybe four if I’m feeling generous. 

Okay, squad. Spoilers. 

Have you ever seen the film Eight Legged Freaks? I wouldn’t blame you if you hadn’t. It came out in 2002 and was only okay, but this book is like a small scale version of that. The monsters are dog sized spiders, and they’re pretty cool. The explanation for how they became dog sized is nonsense, but it doesn’t have to be scientifically coherent for it to be cool, and these badboys are cool. Also, apparently Scarlett Johannsson was in Eight Legged Freaks. I suppose not even she is immune to being in a bad film.

The book isn’t immune to plot holes. The groundskeepers apparently have their pet spiders well trained and when they’re whistling a jaunty tune the spiders don’t attack, and that works just fine for the two or three hours on a Saturday the book takes place in. But what about the five weekdays before that, and the five before that and so on. Are you telling me one of them is always stood on the school field whistling or humming so an errant dog sized spider doesn’t gobble up an unsuspecting student? But I only thought about that plot hole as I closed the book. It didn’t distract me at the time. The plot moves quickly enough, and the book kept me interested enough that I didn’t stop to think of it during the story, only once I’d finished it. And even now, thinking about said plot hole, it doesn’t detract from how much I enjoyed the book. Some plot holes do that, because the story they’re in isn’t good enough to make you not mind it, but for some stories, like this one, you’re willing to suspend your disbelief just that little bit further. 

Dread Wood is a good time. Definitely worth reading.