Let's Go Play at the Adams

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As you can imagine, things go very horribly wrong for Barbara. The children chloroform her one night and bind her to her bed, really just doing it in the beginning to see if they can get away with it. Once they realize they have full control of Barbara, and that she is completely unable to escape, the game escalates, and pretty much goes exactly where you would expect it to. I appreciated Johnson’s change in narrative tone at this part as well. At first, the experience starts out exciting and the kids all take their turns finishing Barbara. Then while they are torturing her, she dies, and Johnson explains how they all grow bored with her body, now that she’s not responding nor making noises. It read very similarly to how a lot of children are with toys that become discarded. The batteries die or a piece breaks off and it no longer works like it used to. So it gets buried in the bottom of the toy bin until eventually it’s tossed out. This was the essential basis for the entire buildup of the story and it was done incredibly well.

Fix Fic: At least two professional works, the above mentioned Game's End by Barry Schneebeli (more on this below), and a subplot in the novel The Abyss by Steve Vance, were born out each writer's desire to save Barbara and/or punish the kids. If you've ever read the book, you might be tempted to write one yourself. No one would blame you. It’s difficult to attract attention to a novel without ruining its mystique but that’s my aim with this post. This is an unmissable read. So, while I spend probably another decade considering whether I dare read this again, it will sit on my bookshelf where I know it can behave itself. It is one of those books that I thought was very good, but I do not take pleasure in recommending it to others in case it makes them feel how I did as a young girl.As Barbara became further degraded and objectified by the children, she became a different object for each children. She was an object of nurture but became an object of blame for Cindy, a duty for Bobby; an object to study the effect of torture for Paul, an object of lust for John, and an object of jealousy for Dianne. The further Barbara became objectified, the deeper the children transitionned into their cruel roles. Cindy became more vengeful; Bobby became coldly efficient; Paul became sociopathic; John gave in to his lust; and Dianne seized her leadership role like a cold tyrant. I had so many different thoughts running through my head with this novel, that I actually had to start myself a little review notebook where I could put all my thoughts on paper. This is going to be a long review… I can already feel it. But Barbara is still tied up, helpless, and terrified. They can make her pay for what she's making them do to her. I have to admit that I held out hope toward the end. Barbara's confinement and torture are a slow burn, and we learn a lot about each of the characters as the children become bolder. This makes the story even harder to read, because we know that Bobby has grown tired of the game, and actually feels bad for Barbara. For a while Cindy even tires of having complete freedom, and considers releasing Barbara out of boredom and because she genuinely likes the young woman. But the McVeigh children threaten them multiple times and have no intention to stop the game until the inevitable ending. John and Dianne are clearly sociopaths, and Dianne is highly intelligent. Paul is barely able to function, and is almost certainly a psychopath. So toward the end, when we dread the obvious outcome, and Bobby actually seems to waver and consider stopping such a monstrous game, the reader grasps desperately at a shred of hope. Alas, The Freedom Five has too much influence on him, and we learn that poor Barbara never really stood a chance. We get each characters POV and it makes it all the more disturbing. Seeing each child's reasoning with what they're doing. Seeing what they think and how they feel about it. Barbara's POV is tough to take. We join her in her descent from initial confusion to denial to realisation to terror. The only times I found Barbara a bit frustrating was when she kept blaming herself for everything but then maybe that's a natural reaction. Her thought process was there too. We had insight into the minds of the captors and the captive, and neither was easy to take in.

I'm not a glass half-full kinda guy. I know that children can often (usually?) have little to no moral compass. more importantly, I know how the world can be a cruel and relentless place; I've seen the horrible things it can inflict on people. thank you, work history. but there is always context for why people do the things they do. not context that excuses those things, but context that allows an understanding of why they occurred. I actually struggled with what to rate this. For me – no doubt this is an outstanding psychological thriller/horror novel. Sure it had some clunky parts and some odd writing tidbits, but this book will stay with me for a long time. I’m a person who doesn’t get triggered or find much to be too hard to watch or read, but the enduring horror of what this book describes will be on my mind for a long while. An interesting note I’ll add here instead of further on, in the Further Reading section – from the link I’ll provide, it appears as though Mr Johnson detested children (though he himself had two daughters from his first marriage) which adds further intrigue to the basis of this story using children as the main characters. Afterwards comes Paul, aged 12, whose presence in the story is very strange. He’s not really got any motive other than his own dark desires. A weirdo 12 year old with violent tendencies is really nothing new – Paul was just a little more over the top!

But this year… well this year’s different. You see, roof repairs have caused them to have to change their plans. Now they’re staying at the cabin at the end of season, in fact they’re the last campers before it closes for the winter. If you are easily offended, I don't think you should read this but for everyone else who likes their horrors realistic, foul and unpleasant but intriguing and thrilling, this book is highly recommended. Thank you.