Excellent. Creeped Me RIGHT Out.
5 out of 5 stars
I wish I could say that I’ve never been happier to not be in Lilydale, but the town of Litani, Minnesota isn’t much better. It actually might be worse. (Context: the first two books I read by Lourey, Unspeakable Things and Bloodline took place in Lilydale, Minnesota. Thankfully, the same eeriness and unsettled feelings are here in full display – just as they were in the first two books.
In all three of the books that I’ve read by Lourey, I’ve had this feeling of being skeeved out – and I’ve had to call it out each time because there aren’t a lot of books that give me this feeling. So much so that I had to look it up to make sure I was using it properly the first two times. Even if I’m not, I’m stuck with it now.
In Litani, kids are playing a “game”. I was pretty sure I knew what that stood for early on and I was unhappily correct. That doesn’t take away from the mystery and intrigue that this book has though. Quite the opposite, it ended up causing a sense of urgency. I wanted to know what was going on and even more – I needed to know who the heck was hurting these kids.
I think another thing that all three of the Lourey books I’ve read had going for them was the setting (rural Minnesota) along with the time (mid-80’s). Lourey talks about it a little bit at the end of this book (if I remember correctly) – talking about the news playing lots of stories about missing kids and basically starting the whole Gabby Patito/podcast era of True Crime/unsolved crimes fad WAY before it became popular recently. The 80’s setting ramps a lot of things up – including not being able to track people with cell phones. It also was an era where kids just went out to play (I know, I was one of them). It’s that familiarity and the rural settings that take Lourey’s books from being good to great. They all jump off of the page.
I thought that Cassandra Morris did a nice job narrating this one. The point of view was interesting, being from a young girl’s POV. But I think that Morris did a great job becoming her without falling into the voice tropes that she could have. Her performance elevates an already great book.
Book Description:
