Read with Fern

This book was set up as a witch possession. Alice is creepy as fuck, with literal body transformations happening as she reveals things about Mina and Sam that she has no possible way of knowing. There’s suspiciously-timed deaths that can’t be proved to be or not be directly caused by Alice. And there’s the damn wasps, popping up every time Alice does something suspiciously magical. Alice even admits to breaking a witch’s bottle right before all of this starts happening to her!

I know there’s a few different types of people who read or watch horror. I am a skeptic. My favorite ending to a horror story is when there’s a logical, but equally terrifying explanation. I’m even fine with a vague ending, where it COULD be an evil spirit or it COULD be psychosis. And Pearce did take that path. But instead of literally 10 other plausible options (don’t worry, Ilisted them farther down), she chooses a creepy pedophile witch hunter who controls the town because he drugged 15 women in town when they were teenagers. TELL ME HOW THAT MAKES SENSE. And you know what’s never fully addressed? Alice’s WITCH POSSESSION. There’s literally a witch hunt that ends with a tongue being pulled out and a “witch” being drowned, and no one ever talks about Alice??

Because there’s no Alice explanation, there’s no Bert is a witch hunter explanation. I mean, there’s literal CHAPTERS of Pearce TELLING us Bert is a witch hunter, but that’s a pretty odd hobby to have in 1989. Especially when he’s just been performing these Riddance Days (witch hunts) with full support of the town, seemingly forever? He said he did it to Mary when they were first married and it worked like a charm. But you’re telling me the year after WWII ended, a British town was fully in on a witch hunt ceremony? And Bert acts like his family has been doing this literally since the 1500s? I’m all for creepy, insular small towns and their rituals, but this was pushing it for me.

And again, my main point is WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH ALICE? I was fully invested in her, she had the most developed character, the whole book is supposed to be about her, and we get absolutely nothing. Like yay, she killed Bert. She can also TALK TO THE DEAD and no one seems to care?! Justice for Alice, being a 13-year-old girl in this world is hell. 

Thank you for reading all of this! As a treat, here’s all the different ways I thought this story was going to end (that would’ve been better IMHO):

1. The house has black mold and Alice is just delusional.
2. Alice’s dad is coaching her and they did research on Sam and Mina.
3. The town is located over a natural gas deposit that’s been slowly leaking and poisoning the entire town.
4. Heatstroke-induced delusions.
5. Mass hysteria brought on by the power of suggestion (the closest to the actual ending).
6. The Webber parents have undiagnosed mental health issues now presenting in Alice.
7. Mina’s the one feeding information to Alice, then actually killing people, all to make her career look better.
8. There’s a plant releasing toxic pollen that’s been distributed through the town because of the extreme heat.
9. Tamsin, the younger sister, is somehow making Alice sick and gives Alice information she learned while snooping or eavesdropping.
10. Bert is still a creepy pedophile ruining girls’ developing brains with his roofie concoctions, and there’s no witch part, because men are the most terrifying thing we can live through.

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