In the wake of his parents’ tragic deaths in a house fire, fourteen-year-old Richard Elauved has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote, insular town of Ballantyne. Richard quickly earns a reputation as an outcast, and when a classmate named Tom goes missing, everyone suspects the new, angry boy is responsible for his disappearance. No one believes him when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie. No one, that is, except Karen, a beguiling fellow outsider who encourages Richard to pursue clues the police refuse to investigate. He traces the number that Tom prank called from the phone booth to an abandoned house in the Black Mirror Wood. There he catches a glimpse of a terrifying face in the window. And then the voices begin to whisper in his ear.

I need to admit that this book was pretty much a disaster, it had some good scenes spread out throughout this book. But other than that, I got an impression of this book that Jo Nesbø was a mix between “The institute” by Stephen King and “It” by Stephen King.

The plot in this book was all over the place. The plot in this book felt like it had too many ideas added to it in such a way that made me feel like the author was trying to get too many different readers to read this book, to actually work for any of them. At the same time all of those ideas which were thrown into the plot felt unfinished and unexplored in this book because the plot in this book tried to go into many different directions and because of it, the plot didn’t go actually anywhere meaningful.

As I’ve said above in the intro, the overall plot of this book reminded me of a heavy mix of “The institute” by Stephen King and “it” by stepping king. Because the overall premise of this book was pretty much the same, because there are those kids in a institute in a way and they are trying to get out because the “ghost” or the bad guy in this book is treating to kill someone the main character really cares about.

The characters in this book, are pretty flat and shallow. I personally had a very hard time trying to tell the characters apart in this book, which really made it confusing for me personally. All of the characters in this book lack personalities or something that would make them standout for themselves from the rest of the characters in this book.

The main character in this book is very annoying and frustrating. Because he acts like a spoiled 9-year-old and he is the main reason why I hate this book as much as I do.

The writing itself in this book was very basic. It almost felt like YA-ish writing style which again comes back to the author trying to appeal this book to as many people as possible with this book. 

This book was very disappointing for me personally because I’m a huge fan of the “harry hole” series which this author has written. So I expected this book to be as good as the Harry Hole series which of course it wasn’t.

I Give This Book 1 / 5