Caroline Hardaker's Mothtown is a truly remarkable and unique novel that isn't easily classifyable.

From the first chapter the reader quickly catches that something is a little off as the main character David sets out on a dangerous journey. We don't know what that journey is or where he is going. Told in two time lines "Before" and "After" we find that 10 year old David is grieving over the death of his grandfather. Since David never sees his grandfather's body, he believes he is still alive just in a different world. This begins the obsession of preparing a journey to find his grandfather.

Hardaker slowly provides hints to the reader that David is mentally off and brilliantly conveys this in pieces as the reader goes on this journey with David. I couldn't help but care and get invested in this character, along with how his mental illness affects his immediate family.

Hardaker's writing style is unique with beautiful prose. The drawings are unexpectedly moving and really enhance the storyline. At times it felt a little long and redundant, but overall I encourage an adventurous reader to take on the odd journey.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

Mothtown follows the metamorphosis of David as he discovers who he truly is. This is a beautiful novel of one's journey through grief and mental illness. This one is a slow burn, but totally worth it.

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced readers copy in return for my honest review.

First, thank you Angry Robot for this eARC

Love the illustrations and I wish horror had them more often.

I'll admit that I was confused a bit but I'm not going to have any grief over that because in the end I enjoyed it for what it is.

Was it weird? Absolutely. I think when you create something that is so genre-fluid it is expected. The elements of horror and speculative fiction melding with Gothic and sci-fi notes notes wrapped up in a lyrical narrative is an experience for the senses.

Gotta love a good plot twist 🤌🏼

"Mothtown" by Caroline Hardaker, is a story that revolves around David Porter, a young boy caught in a world plagued by unexplained disappearances, eerie phenomena known as "The Modern Problem," and a growing sense of dread. David's only refuge is his enigmatic grandfather, Francis Porter, who shares a unique bond with him. When Francis suddenly vanishes, David's world unravels, and he embarks on a quest to find the grandfather he idolizes.

Caroline Hardaker masterfully employs a dual timeline, switching between 'Before' and 'After' to provide an immersive view of David's life. Through young David's perspective, we witness the loneliness that surrounds him as he struggles for acceptance in a world that doesn't seem to understand him. His relationship with his grandfather is portrayed as something truly special, a haven from the harsh reality of his everyday life.

The narrative pulsates with emotional intensity as David's journey unfolds, and his fixation on discovering doorways to other worlds intensifies.

David is a character who elicits profound empathy, as one can't help but wonder how his life might have been different if someone had reached out to help him, to make him feel seen, heard, and loved.

David's struggle with being different, with thoughts and perceptions that set him apart, is a powerful allegory for the often-dismissed issues of mental health, autism, and hidden disabilities, offering a unique perspective on societal neglect of mental health/awareness.

In addition, the book is replete with vivid descriptions, from the bright orange of David's grandfather's jumper in an otherwise drab setting to the evocative smells of rust and coffee.

Chris Riddell's accompanying illustrations add an extra layer of immersion, visually representing the light and darkness in David's life. The use of Moths as a recurring motif throughout the story adds to the enigmatic atmosphere and invites readers to interpret their symbolic significance.

In conclusion, Hardaker's narrative weaves a beautifully poignant tale of the connection between a grandson and his grandfather, the search for escape, and the journey of transformation. "Mothtown" is ultimately a story about the quest for belonging.

Thank you so much Netgalley and Angry Robot for providing me this ARC in exchange for a honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review. The following opinions are my own.

This felt almost like videogameish? I don't really know how to elaborate on that more. I'm not mad about it but it made the experience different than what I was expecting.

Mothtown is strange, unsettling and lyrical throughout. The book explores some dark themes and does so in a way that really engaged me. I enjoyed the vivid and odd descriptions, with insects being a major theme. This made me think of Franz Kafka The Metamorphosis. We get to see the world painted through another’s internal thought process and this really played into the themes of disconnect and loneliness. We have a before and after timeframe that we switch between building tension and adding to the reading experience. There are also some well-placed poignant illustrations. If you like speculative fiction this is a must read.
Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for an E-ARC. This is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

David and his Granddad are close, and his Granddad is the one who helps him explore the great unknown from his very own studies and paintings. When Granddad goes missing and eventually turns up dead, David is distraught. However, he feels as if there's something his family isn't telling him and that perhaps Granddad is still alive. He's just in the multi-verse, or maybe like those nomadic mud people wandering around town, lost and hopeless; regardless of the possibilities, David wants to find out the truth of it all.

What he finds might just absorb his life and those around him for the obsession never ceases and only takes up a quarter of David's life in this pursuit in finding his long lost grandfather.

I am so thankful to Angry Robot Books, Dreamscape Media, Caroline Hardaker, and Netgalley for granting me digital and audio access before this baby hits shelves on November 14, 2023.

Mothtown delivers a dark, mysterious mood right off the bat. People are disappearing, and young David's family is trying to not let him see any of the news about it, while evidence of it is all around him. When his beloved grandfather goes missing, he's determined to find out more, but there's only so much he can do as a child.

He grows up, and people are still missing, but it's not making the news as much as it did when he was younger. He's still determined to find out about his grandfather, and he still feels like he doesn't belong in this world.

Overall, what started out as creepy and mysterious turned into something more confusing and melancholy. There were a lot of threads that I thought I was picking up and being led to figure out what was happening, but they always seemed to drop off or be inconclusive. I wanted a bit more to stand on at the end, but was left a bit sad and feeling like I was missing something important. (3.25 on Storygraph)

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love weird literary fiction, I love horror, and I loved Midsommar. Curiosity compelled me to pick this one up. On the other side of the read, I’m not sure I see the Midsommar connection. Sure; both are unsettling and deal with grief. But at their core I think they are entirely different stories. That’s not to say if you liked one you’ll dislike the other, just a shift of expectations.

In fact, I would advise having no expectations for this one. It’s not the first book I’ve read where you simply have to embrace the confusion. I was lost for a good portion of this journey. And honestly, I loved that. The confusion leant itself beautifully to the ambience and the struggles of our narrator. David doesn’t know what is going on, and neither did I.

What I did understand, at the start, is that David’s world was ours–but different. The news he secretly consumes refers to a “Modern Problem” that all my research could find no analogous definition of. It is clear that this problem is related to mental health, perhaps an umbrella term, but that it also involves a unifying symptom: disappearing. David’s enemy, though, is not this Modern Problem, but a group known as The Blue Pilgrims.

The Blue Pilgrims are real. And they’re not a soccer group. But in Hardaker’s world they are much more prominent than they are today. They do still set up houses, however, and these Blue Houses are a constant threat to David. He is convinced the Pilgrims are following him and they mean to do him harm. All he wants to do is go home, but a Blue House is not the home he seeks.

Now, I have a lot of interpretations for what is happening in this story. I don’t want to take away from the experience, but I think I can safely say this: David’s story will pull at your heartstrings. This is someone who is desperate for help but cannot accept the help that is offered him. This is someone who does not belong, so how can anyone who does know how to help him?

David’s strongest tie is his grandfather, and he loses him. With his grandfather, he felt seen and understood. He made him real. But David’s family are not brought together by grief. They are sundered. David’s sister, Emily, was his only other touchstone for connection and belonging. But Emily is fundamentally different from David, and her reaction to their grandfather’s loss is too stark a contrast for David. He feels betrayed, and even more alone. He lost them both.

And so this is how we meet our protagonist. Alone, heartbroken, but still desperately seeking. And where do we meet him? In Mothtown. It’s not his destination, but the place he must cross. Mothtown separates his before and his after. Mothtown is his hope, his reason, his proof. He’ll find something there. And I think you will, too.

I struggled trying to give a rating to this book, but then again, I struggled with it in more ways than one: after grabbing my attention from the get-go, the story not so much as slowed down but made it abundantly clear that it will require a lot of investment, both intellectual (to follow a fairly unusual plot told through an unreliable narrator’s perspective) and emotional (to wade through evocatively creepy imagery and occasionally heartbreaking prose).

It’s a novel that’s hard to review, to an extent because it’s hard to put a genre label on it, but there are definitely horror elements involved and at times it feels like it threatens to pull you under so you’re fully submerged in its confusing, lonely and ultimately quite dark reality. As such, it’s definitely a story that needs a particular kind of reader. It keeps you hooked, and no matter your personal genre preference, it takes significant skill to keep readers in suspense throughout, guessing as to whether they’re seeing the puzzle right. As for me, I definitely didn’t expect SPOILER [this to unravel from what looked like more of a heroworshipper-against-the-ignorant-and-hostile-world situation into a full-blown mental illness, even though some things certainly read a little off, from David’s little ‘collection’ and the structure in his home to the Homefinders’ meeting and the follow-up request to invest everything he had into private tutelage, as well as his prior interaction with his sister Emily that read a whole lot like how it would go with an addict (hiding his true purpose for visiting, trying to stay on her good side and not rouse suspicion) and a conversation they had about it later on. By the time David described how Agatha reacted to his appearance at her workplace, gripping the counter and looking startled, I was fairly sure their entire ‘relationship’ never happened.] And even though I can say I spotted some things that pointed in the right direction, the book continued to keep me off-balance on this journey, which I believe was intentional - and masterfully done, at that.

All things considered, I can’t in all truthfulness say that I enjoyed reading this book, exactly - it deals with a number of hard topics and is overall very grim - but it was definitely unique and very gripping, a definite find for those more into mindbenders.

The ending flipped my interpretation on everything that happened in the lead up. Think the movie The Sixth Sense if you didn't see the twist coming. If you like that kind of thing, totally pick this up.

The problem for me is that I don't want to have to read a book twice to get it. Or to plod through 300 pages before things start to make sense. The first 80% this book was a frustrating combination of dull and confusing. Very little plot, thrown into scenes with no context, repetitive, repetitive, repetitive. There were half a dozen elements brought up over and over. Yet, they made no more sense the fourth time they were discussed than they did the first time.

Yes, the ending was interesting, but I'm not sure it was enough to make up for the rest. If you're a person that likes to examine, and dissect, and re-read - you might really like this. If you're looking for something to cruise through for fun or a good scare, this probably isn't it.

I "did-not-finish" this title and therefore I will not be reviewing. This convoluted beginning of the story did not draw my attention, and I having trouble connecting with the narrative. Perhaps I will come back to this at another time.

Odd little novel, with a creepy tilt. This follows David, both “Before” and “After”. David never quite got over losing his granddad, and as a child and as an adult he realizes he doesn’t quite belong.

I’ll start out by saying I think this author is very talented. Her writing was lyrical and beautiful at certain points, and some of her lines were truly haunting and gorgeous. That being said; this book just didn’t work for me. Despite the beauty of the writing, the actual substance was so boring to me. I could tell it was meant to be mysterious and a slow-burn, but to me it was just confusing and a slog to get through. It picked up around the halfway point, especially when it mostly focused on the one timeline, but by that time I had mentally checked out and honestly didn’t really care where Davey went “home”. For those of you that don’t really care about plots, this might be a nice little fall read, but in general I’d say to skip this.

This atmospheric mind-bending tale completely caught me off guard. The characters, even characters just briefly mentioned, all play a huge role in how eerie this story is. And, the idea of a lifetime of disconnect from others, this feeling of never being understood, ran right off the pages deeply affecting me.

This is a horror story that left me guessing throughout the book and at the end. But, considering the story's plot, I feel like this was intentional and also used to great effect.

If you're looking for a strange, thought-provoking horror, then I definitely recommend this.

Out November 14, 2023!

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

I really wanted to like this more. The writing style is intriguing; a bit ambiguous but very viscerally descriptive and somehow strangely engaging.

The whole story alternates between "before" and "after". The "before" portions show our main protagonist, David, as he grows up from a boy to an adult. The "after" portions show him on a journey to a doorway. David is different than other people and was hugely affected by the disappearance of his grandfather. He is convinced his grandfather went away some where and is determined to find him.

My biggest issue with this story is you can't really figure out what is going on and I don't think you are supposed to. The story has a creepy vibe to it with disappearing people and things with wings in the shadows. But you never really know in the end if David is suffering from mental illness, or if this is a world where people are falling into doorways.

Trying to piece this together was what propelled me through the story as a reader. However, I was left disappointed because I felt like the ending just got weirder and didn't provide any resolution.

If you enjoy ambiguous, creepy stories that are going to leave you completely confused about what actually happened, then you might really enjoy this. The writing is well done with a lot of description and it was intriguing and weird enough that I finished it. It didn't make me want to pick up any other books by Hardaker though.

This book had me on the edge of my seat from the first chapter! Not a lot of books can offer that kind of excitement so I really enjoyed this book.

If you love dark magic realism, genre-bending narratives and haunting prose, this one is for you. It reminds me a little of Pan's Labyrinth in the way it pairs the grotesque and monstrous with childhood innocence to expose the true nature of humanity.

Part natural/body horror, part fantasy, part speculative fiction, it tells the story of David, an outcast child born into a world of fear. As his parents quake at the thought of 'the Modern Problem' (an epidemic of depression among those who feel they are born in the wrong shape, the wrong place, the wrong skin, and seek solace by trying to escape into other worlds), David clings to his Grandad, the only one who accepts his otherness and doesn't shelter him from the harsh truth of things. And then his Grandad, like so many others, simply disappears.

What follows is a wrenching and feral exploration of grief, mental illness, loneliness and suffering. It examines the many ways in which we can feel invisible, lost and out of place if we don't conform to what society views as normal, and the battle it is to overcome that disconnect in order to feel comfortable in the spaces we carve out for ourselves.

The language is full of natural imagery and heavy with metaphors yet still compulsively readable. Like the startling illustrations, it's both horrific and beautiful, making your skin crawl one second and evoking your empathy the next.

I recommend checking the trigger warnings (as there are a lot) but if you enjoy horror, that feeling of 'what did I just read?' and many layers of hidden meanings, it deserves a place on your TBR.

This book felt like a nightmare, where things kept changing and nothing made sense and it was all just terrible. I do mean that in the best way possible. I really enjoyed this book despite the absolute dread I felt while reading it.

Every time I thought I understood what was happening I turned out to be wrong, all the way to the very end. I'm still not sure I really understood what I just read.

The modern problem is an interesting way to describe a real phenomenon we have in our own world, one that I think almost everyone can relate to, to a certain degree. Maybe it's just my mental illness talking but I can see myself so clearly in a woman screaming in the street, desperately wanting to be seen... To a child who doesn't understand how their favourite person can just stop existing.... To a family who just wants everything to be okay.... And to so many people desperately searching for any kind of meaning to hold on to. Yes, surreal and confusing as it was, this book also felt incredibly poignant and relatable.

I definitely don't think this book will be for everyone, but for those like me who love strange and confusing books, you will love this.

Just like its predecessor Composite Creatures, Mothtown is moody, murky and mysterious. Unreliable narration, body horror and feelings of alienation abound. If it was an album, it would be one made up of field recordings and ambient sounds, its music videos all in black and white. It is, to briefly stray into the modern parlance, a vibe. But is it any more than just vibes? And, if it’s not, does that even matter?

Our narrator is David, an individual in the truest sense of the world. He has always got on with his grandfather better than anyone, and whilst it’s true that his loss seems to exacerbate David’s issues, his isolationist tendencies and general awkwardness would likely always have set him apart, driving him on his search for somewhere to call home. For what David really seeks is a sense of belonging. Mothtown is replete with weighty themes: grief, depression, loneliness and obsession are all woven through the narrative, but things never feel like they’re mired in misery. It’s more that everything is suffused with an otherworldly, eerie feeling of disconnection, as if David is at a slight remove from the rest of the world. The timelessness of much of his surroundings only adds to this; it’s not until much later on that there’s any indication of what decade Mothtown is likely to be (roughly) set in. Many scenes could have taken place any time over roughly a fifty year period in history, David’s child’s eye view emphasising the things which matter to him personally but not noticing the wider world around him.

The general air of mysteriousness permeates everything about Mothtown. Glimpses of what’s happening behind the scenes are there, but don’t expect to have your theories confirmed. There are hints as to what could be behind the disappearances and the general air of malaise that the nation seems to be in the grip of, but picking at threads and musing on them is perhaps sometimes more entertaining than having all the answers. Adding to the enigmatic tone are gorgeous illustrations from the award-winning Chris Riddell, which capture the otherworldly tone beautifully.

If you are the sort of reader who needs all the answers, with everything wrapped up neatly by the end of the story, this might not be the book for you. But for those of us who don’t mind a little ambiguity, this is a hugely enjoyable and haunting read, proof that sometimes the journey really does matter more than the destination.

I am not quite sure what I have just read. This read is far from conventional. A very unusual story that certainly does not play by the rules. Defies genres and is a mix of fantasy and liberally sprinkled with horror. A very strange but compelling read.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the Arc in return for an honest review.