Some people say the book was repetitive and too long just don't understand slow burn in story circumstances, just like in real life it takes series of steps to continue to get to a finale of an ending story or to get somewhere in a story. The writing style is beautiful

Thanks very much to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this title. Many thanks, Dave

Kate Reese’s life has been a series of bad decisions since her husband took his own life in the bath several years before. When her latest boyfriend hits her, Kate packs up her few possessions, and her seven-year-old son, and flees eastward in the middle of the night, ending up in the small town of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania. Christopher Reese first sees the Nice Man as a face in the clouds, but Kate isn’t too worried, because his imaginary friend is outnumbered by the group of friends he has made since joining Mill Grove Elementary. But one day, Christopher follows the Nice Man into the Mission Street Woods and isn’t seen for six days. Long-time residents of the town liken it to the disappearance of little David Olson fifty years earlier, though David never came back. When Christopher returns, he’s a changed boy: now he can read without the letters moving about the page, and his mathematical abilities have come along in leaps and bounds. And Christopher now has a purpose, for which he drafts his friends, all of whose intelligences seem to have benefitted from their friendship with the new kid: he has to build a treehouse, in a clearing at the middle of the Mission Street Woods. It’s a treehouse that will allow him to find his friend, the Nice Man, and from which will pour Good and Evil – as embodied by the Nice Man and the Hissing Lady, respectively – that will infect the citizens of Mill Grove, and make this small Pennsylvania town the key battlefield in the war for the survival of the human race.

Since publishing his first novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, in 1999, Stephen Chbosky has worked mostly in film and television. His long-awaited second novel, Imaginary Friend, is very different in tone to his earlier novel and was garnering praise that compared it to Stephen King’s IT long before publication. Focusing on seven-year-old Christopher Reese and the people who inhabit his world, Chbosky examines what happens when a child’s imaginary friend has a little bit more substance than you might expect. While Christopher’s initial disappearance happens more or less offscreen – we spend that week with Christopher’s mother, with the town’s sheriff, with Christopher’s friend – Chbosky quickly plunges us into a nightmare world populated by terrifying creatures, that Christopher must navigate in order to help his friend, and save our world from the insidious whisperings of the Hissing Lady who is holding the Nice Man prisoner.

Chbosky has an eye for detail that is second-to-none, and an ability to get into the heads of each of his characters – from the seven-year-old children, through teenagers, to adults and the elderly – that is, at times, uncanny. He understands what makes us tick and, most importantly, what dark secrets can be found in our hearts. His examination of childrens’ cruelty to one another is an eye-opener, and not the kind of sociological treatise we expect from a novel designed to scare the wits out of us, which is something the author also does with great aplomb.

Edward Charles Anderson ended up being in Christopher’s remedial reading class, lunch period and gym. He ultimately proved to be as bad at reading as he was at kickball. Christopher called him Eddie. But everyone else in the school already knew him by his nickname.

“Special” Ed.

Imaginary Friend is bursting at the seams with characters, and Chbosky allows us glimpses into the minds of many of them, from devout Catholic schoolgirl Mary Katherine MacNeil, who finds Christopher after his six-day absence, to old Mrs Henderson, who runs the school library, and who has dreams of stabbing her husband to death to stop his philandering. Mill Grove, Pennsylvania comes to life between the covers of Imaginary Friend due to the author’s ability to bring his characters to life, and to make us care about who they are, and what they want from life.

Chbosky’s novel is as much about stretching the boundaries of the genre as it is the story of Christopher Reese and his friends, imaginary or otherwise. Imaginary Friend has the entire history of the horror genre to choose from, and it borrows freely from many of them. Here we find the stylistic tics of Danielewski’s House of Leaves; here a town in the middle of a civil war for much the same reason that Castle Rock was more or less destroyed in King’s Needful Things. The timeslip elements are rife throughout the genre, while the imaginary world where Christopher encounters the Nice Man and the Hissing Lady is reminiscent of the Upside-Down, familiar to fans of Netflix’s Stranger Things.

There’s a little bit of something here for everyone, yet the book feels like a coherent whole, an engaging and entertaining story that references the genre greats in passing, half-concealed little Easter eggs for the reader to find depending on their own past reading experience. But it never pauses to examine these references: the story is key, and Chbosky has no interest in making us stop and think about how clever he is. When the story’s climax arrives, it’s something of a surprise, though in hindsight it probably shouldn’t be. It’s dark and it’s terrible, and most of its impact is down to the fact that we’re watching it through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy.

Imaginary Friend marks the end of a twenty-year hiatus for Stephen Chbosky. It’s an accomplished novel, a taut, dark fable whose scope is as vast and far-reaching as the intentions of its antagonist. Beautifully written, it’s a tale that often feels light-hearted in the face of world-ending terror, but Chbosky’s narrative style brings a fresh and engaging approach to telling this kind of story. It is, at its core, a love letter to the horror genre and a welcome addition to that genre from an unexpected and very talented author. Expect this to feature highly on the soon-to-arrive end-of-year lists, and make sure you get your hands on a copy, especially if you are, in any way, a fan of horror fiction.

I tried finishing this book but it's one that when I put it down I never pick it back up. Months will go by and the only reason I go back to it is out of a sense of guilt. Ultimately this is just too long and slow-paced for me.

This was a really good read, despite its length I still flew through it as I just couldn't put it down. It wasn't what I was expecting but there was so much going on keeping me gripped and desperate to find out what was going to happen.

I absolutely loved the part of this, it was creepy, gripping and really clever. But it was sooo long and it just went so down hill, relatively quickly. Nowhere was this advertised as having such a Cristian element to it???? I wouldn't of been interested if that had been portrayed as such.

I gave this book a quick try, and ultimately decided to DNF -- my tastes have changed since I requested this. Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book!

I wasn't sure what to expect going in, but Chbosky blew me away.

Expertly plotted with tremendous characterisation and intricate world building, this story never goes anywhere you think it will. With dry mouth and pounding heart you will keep turning the page, almost unwillingly because you don't want it to end!

Holy heck. I regret not reading this book for so long. I was so blown away by the time I finished reading this book. It received mixed reviews on Goodreads, which I couldn’t for the life of me figure out.

This book follows a young boy, Christopher, as he and his mother escape their old town yet again and find somewhere new to settle. Christopher and his mother have had it really hard. So when some luck finally starts coming their way, no one questions it at first. But this luck sort of comes with… strings. As Christopher delves deeper into the strange world he finds himself in, it makes it harder to get out.

I loved many things about this book. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting, for starters. I’m not someone who normally reads long books (because of aforementioned attention span of a nat) but I couldn’t put this one down, and that’s saying something. This book is gripping, and it feels like there’s a plot twist on every other page – not like in an excessive way, like how some books feel dramatic for the sake of being dramatic. No, this novel feels carefully crafted and well thought-out. There were many times I thought our heroes weren’t going to make it. And there were many times when I thought the end was near – even though I was halfway through the book!

I didn’t realise this book was going to have paranormal aspects to it, but Chbosky made it work very well. I understand that some people also didn’t like the religious connotations, which I couldn’t figure out. This book doesn’t, in any way, shove religion down the reader’s throat, it just makes some religious references – which many tales we know of are based upon. To ignore biblical references in the every day world is absurd.

Hats off to Chbosky for another hit novel! I can’t wait to read what he writes next.

A mind-bending ride that is not for everyone (as can be seen by a brief perusal of the Goodreads review!), I absolutely loved this. A page-turner that kept me up reading way past my bedtime, this builds to an absolutely shocking finale that will leave you breathless. Highly, highly recommended!

Perhaps it was the length, maybe the writing, but as much as I loved The Perks of Being A Wallflower, this book could have been written by a different author altogether. I didn’t connect to it.

I must admit a book blogger’s worst nightmare with Imaginary Friend, I requested the ARC back before the hardback version came out and it’s been sat on my shelf until just before it will be published in paperback! So sorry to the publishers, I guess I was a little apprehensive at starting this 700 page tome but I’d heard some good things and wanted to get the review done before my second deadline at least!

We’ll start with the positives; Imaginary Friend is written in a really engaging way. Although it’s long, the writing style kept me engaged and made me want to keep picking it up to see what happened next. I also enjoyed the split narratives in the story – although the book is very centred around Christopher, we get small snippets of story arc from pretty much everyone living in the town it is set in and it really made for a varied read. It very much reminded me of a Stephen King book – centred around a young boy and his friends fighting off bullies while the supernatural world unfurls around them.

Then we get to more of the negative spectrum - at 700 pages this book could have so easily been edited down to around 350! Although I enjoyed the set up of the book and getting to know Christopher and his mother and friends, I felt it started to lose its tight pacing after they built the tree-house. After this point it all starts to get a bit muddled and repetitive. The last 30% (baring in mind that is 200 pages!) of the book could have been cut in my honest opinion as we just get the same fight over and over again. The writing style also becomes a bit abstract towards the end – whole paragraphs are intentionally repeated which really wasn’t needed. There are also phrases that are repeated a lot as well which lost their dramatic effect, such as ‘He was terrified.’ The first time this was mentioned it invoked fear in the reader as a seemingly capable character was portrayed as being scared, but after a while I just started rolling my eyes as the phrase was used more and more.

I don’t normally mention formatting in an ARC copy but after I opened my original ARC and saw lots of sentences running together with no spaces I re-downloaded it in the hope they had updated it to the version that is currently being sold. I really hope this isn’t the case as the lack of spaces makes some parts very hard to read and is still very present in the version I downloaded this month. I really enjoyed a moment where the capital letters in one character’s letters ended up being important to the plot but then the formatting was used in other places to a less dramatic effect. One character speaks with random capital letters peppering their speech for example, and another with no capital letters other than at the end of words. Although I understand trying to show the characters speech patterns through emphasis of certain letters it wasn’t needed and made the whole book very difficult to read.

The first half of the book shows good promise with an interesting plot but I was disappointed at where the author decided to take it. I also don’t understand why the author insisted that Christopher had to be 7 years old as it makes him as a character very unrealistic – I saw him more as 11/12 throughout. The ending didn’t feel climatic enough for me and the very last chapter I had completely guessed as soon as the character it is centred on was introduced – it wasn’t a great cliff hanger.

Overall Imaginary Friends is a good enough story but needs some ruthless editing and a good format check for this reader. Thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for a copy of the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A book that opens up extremely well and even though a very daunting size I thought I was in for a treat. Sadly this book just becomes a very laborious slog that began to bog me down.

Unfortunately I think this book is far to long with many pages of very little or repetitiveness.

Thanks for the review copy

Thanks for the early copy via Netgalley.

Found it difficult to connect with the characters and didn’t finish the book. Full of great reviews already so hope it was just the way I was reading, will go back to it for a second chance at a later stage.

DNF. I couldn't connect with this book at all and found it really hard to get into. I had high hopes for this, which is a shame.

I have heard such good things about this author and thought yes! I read this and I don't know, it was good but it didn't blow me away. At times I felt that it was too long, too descriptive and just too much. I am not saying that it was a bad book just that it wasn't for me.

It definitely opened my mind and had me thinking but sadly not one of my favourites.

I am not going to lie, this may be an unpopular opinion, but I actually enjoyed this book. It wasn't until I was home alone, reading this book at night, where I realised how much this book was actually starting to really creep me out. I have been in a real horror mood lately, so I kept reading, craving the creepy story and atmosphere that this book kept giving me, in bucket loads. The simple idea of if you can imagine it, then that makes it real, is a scary thought when you're alone in the dark.

I know this is said a lot and is usually what all horror books are compared, but this book really did resemble that of Stephen King. I say that with me being a big fan of Stephen Kings' work. I wasn't expecting to enjoy this as much, which is probably why I ended up enjoying it. Not only did I go into this book a little wary because of reviews I had heard, but also because of Stephen Chbosky himself. I have only read The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Chbosky, which I loved, but I was cautious as I didn't know how he'd be able to go from writing from one genre to the other. I was happy to be proven wrong.

This book was surprisingly fast paced and for the chunky size of this book, I flew through this book within a couple of days, reading it faster than I had read smaller books. The plot of the book, the writing and even the characters had me racing through the pages, making me wanting to discover how this book was going to end and how it was all going to come together. This book did take a bit of weird turn, but honestly, I never know what to expect when I go into a horror book, or film, so I'm always prepared for a little bit of the unusual, as that can be expected when you're reading horror. The world of the known or unknown, taken and manipulated until you're left with some strange reality of what's been created.

I really loved Stephen Chbosky's Perks of Being A Wallflower so when I heard he was releasing a creepy horror tale I was desperate to try it out.

The story started out really strong, it was dark and chilling and I was instantly hooked but unfortunately as I struggled with the latter half of the book. The ending didn't feel like it was worth the effort of getting through the seven hundred pages. For me the story was just a bit too long - I'm sure many people are going to absolutely love this story but unfortunately it just wasn't for me.

When the promotional email I received for the book likened Imaginary Friend to Stephen King’s IT, I had very high expectations of the complexity and creepiness of this thriller novel. Glad to say those expectations were met entirely, but what I didn’t expect was the length of it! Granted, IT is an exceptionally long novel at 1,396 pages. Still, Imaginary Friend weighs in at just over 700 pages. Compared to other horror/thriller novels I’ve picked up, it’s EPIC! There were some sections of narrative that were stickier than others to read. Could it be shorter? Perhaps. That said though, I do think it all adds up to the overall ending, so it's not wasteful content. It's relevance just isn't known at the time.

The content of the book is sinister enough, but what gave me the chills more was the protagonist subject to the horror and paranormal goings-on is a child. It made me question what was going on; could it be nothing more than Christopher’s vivid imagination, or was it real? I can’t say this novel gave me nightmares because I’m not really affected that way when it comes to horror. I know it to be fiction and so it doesn’t bother me that way. Judging from other reviews though, not everyone can say the same!

As can be expected with such an epic, there are a lot of characters that play their part in this story. Whilst Christopher and his immediate family are probably the most developed throughout, there is still plenty of time put into the ‘minor’ or ‘supporting’ characters. The detail that went into establishing each of the characters and their relations with others to build the whole dynamic of the town is astounding. I feel like I know everyone like I’ve lived amongst them myself! I absolutely had my favourites – Ambrose, special shout out to you. I invested heavily with the characters, and knowing the plot is heading towards a cataclysmic event spurs you on to find out what happens!

There may be some readers that don’t like some of the religious undercurrents towards the end of the story. I’m quite happy to put out there that I’m not religious at all, but I didn’t mind its inclusion or influence on the plot at all. I personally think it made it more interesting.

This book really had me in the first half, I was gripped. However, from the halfway point, it quickly devolves, and I found the plot from thereon to be clumsily explained, with the biblical metaphors presented a bit too heavy handedly. The ending was disappointing, and I felt like I only finished the book due to how much time I had sunk into the first half. I had high expectations for this but ultimately felt disappointed and undewhelmed.