When the narrator playfully alters the snow-cones signs in “Balloons” Maggie chuckles and scolds him before buying a snow-cone. I’ve only read the online version, but it sounds like the author did a lot of cleanup and hole patching for the book version. Only thing I could come up with was to hurt the narrator. I felt that the whole “Tom’s home!” thing was her confusing the stalker for Tom. It was phased out in the late 60’s, well before the Internet and cell phones. This is a hauntingly rewarding novel that I’ll read again in the future. Before long, it was adapted into illustrations, audio recordings, and short films; and that was before it was revised and expanded into a novel! Author of Say No to Drugs, writer for Blumhouse, Dread Central, Horror Novel Reviews and Addicted to Horror Movies. 1,920 reviews. [Movie Talk] Top 5 Creepy Episodes of Anthology Shows, February 8, 2015 in Horror Story of the Week //, Horror Story of the Week – Mark Allan Gunnells: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Francesco Francavilla ‘Afterlife with Archie: Escape from Riverdale’ Review, November 21, 2014 in Featured Articles //, Joe Mynhardt, Shallow Waters Vol.1 review, Jonathan Winn, The Martuk Series Vol. August 1, 2016 August 1, 2016 / asylumfarm. The story, which entangles readers and seizes complete attention early, functions on a multifarious level and is assembled in unorthodox but well calculated fashion. Hello and welcome to the review of Pen Pal Book: the newsletter.Here's the basic information that I came across to: PenPal Book, Issue 29 "It is hard to find people who still like to do snail mail, so I have a newsletter I send out in January, April, July & Oct. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Absolutely loved it! Pen Pals can take up to a maximum of three schools, and the partnership lasts for one academic year. Up until then I had assumed they grew apart because the events in the narrator’s old house were super f-ed up and he just wanted to not think about it. Book Reviews: Horror Penpal by Dathan Auerbach. I have soo many questions that are nagging me. I’ve heard the extremely prolific Dean Koontz, author of roughly 100 works (plenty of which were number one sellers) of fiction, bashed to hell and back over the last few, View Horror Novel Reviews’s profile on Facebook, View HorrorNovelRevs’s profile on Twitter, Thrift Store Finds: Save the Last Dance for Me, When in Paris, Revisit Gaston Leroux’s Timeless Masterpiece ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, Interview: Jack Ketchum Talks Horror Roots and New Book ‘The Secret Life of Souls’, 5 Horror Novels That Deserve a Video Game Adaptation. Because I just read that he heard Boxes through the Walky-talky, and that’s it. A cat isn’t able to press the walkie-talkie button to “speak” to Dathan’s walkie-talkie. Josh- I love the unknown: therefore my answer was an emphatic yes. Slenderman Video: Author Lee McGeorge Explores the Home of Slenderman! PENpal Products & Value Packs PENpal Basics: How to use the Recorder Pen Books Guaranteed to Work With PENpal Using PENpal To Foster ELL Oral Language Development. Just read the novel. It seemed like a pretty important part of the story since they talked so much about her there for a while. (It reeked of death, so it must have been more than just one old lady. Auerbach may not yet be a household name, but if he’s got more creativity of this level tucked away in his mental corridors, genre fans have a new name to memorize. She could have had a split personality due to her age, which could explain why she seemed to act cold to the narrator that night until she entered her Alzheimer’s stage. Mybesthorrorbooks.com review. But Alzheimer’s (like just about all dementias) is progressive….When you have it, you don’t level off at a certain degree of confusion, and continue living alone years later, still able to dress and feed yourself, let alone make cookies or shop for a shark float. Can you imagine the stress of Dathan’s mother knowing what she knew and keeping it secret in order to keep her son safe? As for the police report with Joshua as the name, that is his friend Josh’s full given birth name. This story is as much Josh’s as it is the narrators. Not to disparage small children, they are brilliant in their own way, but it is utterly improbable that two unsupervised six-year old boys could build a full-sized raft. how what happened to Ms. Maggie’s mind may have been like what happened to Veronica and Josh’s mother. I also think Auerbach tries so hard to lead us astray in the end scene that he really is cheating. Auerbach does an excellent job of setting his reader ill at ease using a minimum of words. In general, the faults of Penpal are minimal. Since her husband died during a night run, it’s possible she is confused by the PP coming out of the woods at night and possibly believes that he really is “Tom” at first. His constant “being around” is declarative to his love of the narrator. Very mediocre. This video is unavailable. I’m not sure I can fully get on board with the theory of Miss Maggie being a killer also back in the day but find your theory interesting. hey guys, asked Dathan about this specific detail, and here’s what he told me: “think that might spoil some of the fun, man! Speaking of unsupervised, the time period is obviously meant to reflect those glory days of “free-range” childhood, but I’m pretty sure no child of that age would be allowed the freedom of this kid. When the narrator confronts him for being a “bad friend” (something that is even more painful when it’s revealed what happens to Josh later) Josh responds quietly “You left” – implying that the PP has sense refocused his attention onto Josh. But I think Boxes the cat may have played somewhat a heroic role. The two are inseparable throughout the bulk of the book. ( Log Out /  Have you looked into the interview I conducted with him? And he’d been keeping an eye on the narrator from there, while killing others. I just finished the book and am glad I found this site to help answer some of my questions. Perhaps it was her two sons that “had nothing to do with her all those years”? When Miss Maggie said “Tom is home” and then died. But I don’t imagine the mother would have come out alive. They are referring to his friend because he was a witness. This infuriated the stalker, whom proceeded to murder her by chopping her up into pieces. Yeah, OK.. Josh is bold, loyal, easy-going and loving. Copyright © 2021 Additionally, I don’t really get the “You Left” comment by Josh. Anyways, despite her illness, Maggie seems to protect and care for the boys the best she can in her condition. He would only show the name Joshua on there for the fact that joshua was talked about and a known character in the story. When she runs through the home to walk along the front lawn as the narrator goes home, I think it’s a protective gesture. I know I’m coming late to the party, but this past summer was the first chance I’ve had to read PenPal before Grad school started back into full swing. Has it really been almost two months since my last book review? And i thought it really happened to narrator’s bestfriend!!! While I believe I understand what happened, why is still an open question to me. ( Log Out /  ... All nit-picking aside, if you love scary stories, you need to read this book. Josh is alone in the woods when he is kidnapped. Also, I noticed on the police report on the last page that it has the name “Joshua” in the top section. Dathan’s mom says to Dathan that if someone did move in with the old lady, that she was delusional enough to think that it is her dead husband; Tom. It’s refreshing from the point of the lack of explicit slaughter and graphic violence that so many authors in the horror genre depend on today. In an attempt to make sense of his own mysterious and unsettling childhood memories, a man begins to reconstruct his past. After checking out a few of the reviews I’ve posted here on horrornovelreviews.com, Dathan reached out to me with a personal request: would I be willing to give his novel, Penpal a look and, possibly a review? Josh is (of course) the most significant character in the whole of these stories. He took refuge in her home and, since she had Alzheimer’s, she thought he was one of her sons. it does not mean that Joshua was the victim. Also, when they find Josh’s body in clothes too tight, it is because it is the narrator’s old clothes from when the killer took up home in his old house. Review #20 Penpal has a rather interesting origin story. The short-form horror format has limitations that make the transition to long-form narrative a difficult one. Download the ‘Halloween Returns: A Fan Fiction Anthology’ Now for Free! Perhaps that’s the narrator’s name? Also, he should’ve explained why the stalker left the walkie-talkie (in a jacket, I believe) under the narrator’s bed. -.- Oh and if the the Penpal was still having fun stalking the narrator with his text “See you again, Soon.” Why did he decide to die with Josh in the end? When the boys go out on the lake at night in “Maps”, Josh’s presence keeps the narrator from being alone in the woods with the PP. That’s why Ms. Maggie was out late at night, which the narrator said seemed weird and out of place. Food for thought. Unfortunately, this becomes the main problem with Penpal. It’s also implied that Josh had decided to finish the boys “Map” from their childhood as a gift to the narrator. If she sometimes mistakes him for Chris or John, why wouldn’t she want either of them to visit him? I do however like your idea of the night the narrator wanted to go in. The entire narrative functions under this practice, and ordinarily, this method makes for murky details and character confusion, but in the case of Penpal, the structure works quite well. The killer is just some random psycho, not another character in the story. Kinda like when Ridley Scott stepped up and said that Deckard was a replicant. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Book Review: Penpal by Dathan Auerbach (2012), The Ten Most Disappointing Books I Read in 2018 – One Year, One Hundred Books, Book Review: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (2004), Book Review: The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James (2017), The Faerie’s Bargain: Chapter Seven: The Decision, Follow One Year, One Hundred Books on WordPress.com. Because the book is first person narrated, I think it’s best to interact with the key characters the narrator relates to us, their significance to him, and their subsequent demises. Your review took the words right out of my mouth, expect you were much more coherent and eloquent than I would have been. 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