***I received this book in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon Product Description:
Tad McGreevy has a power that he has never revealed, not even to his life-long best friend, Stevie Scranton. When Tad looks at others, he sees colors. These auras tell Tad whether a person is good or evil. At night, Tad dreams about the evil-doers, reliving their crimes in horrifyingly vivid detail.
But Tad doesn't know if the evil acts he witnesses in his nightmares are happening now, are already over, or are going to occur in the future. He has no control over the horrifying visions. He has been told (by his parents) never to speak of his power. All Tad knows is that he wants to protect those he loves. And he wants the bad dreams to stop.
At Tad's eighth birthday party (April 1, 1995) in Cedar Falls, Iowa, the clown his parents hire to entertain Tad's third-grade classmates is one of the bad people. Pogo, the Killer Clown (aka Michael Clay) is a serial killer. So begins 53 nights of terror as Tad relives Pogo's crime, awakens screaming, and recites the terrifying details to his disbelieving family. The situation becomes so dire that Tad is hospitalized in a private institution under the care of a psychiatrist--who also does not believe the small boy's stories.
And then the police arrest Pogo, the Killer Clown.
My thoughts:
This is a chilling, gruesome tale. Not a read for the faint of heart. There is no end to the sick and twisted nature of some of the characters in this story.
I need to begin my review with a side note: I read for the happy ending. Always. Regardless of the type of story - romance, paranormal, thriller, horror, fantasy...
I am always waiting for that moment at the end where it all comes together. That moment where the bad guy gets caught, love is finally found, you know - THAT moment. Closure.
Some books hang at the end and you know that there will be another to come. This is that kind of ending. You get a little bit of loose end tying, but for the most part we will all be awaiting the next book to find THAT moment.
The characters in this book stand out because they garnered such a dramatic reaction.
They are mostly all evil or at least bad. (With the exception of a few). The author has created characters that got an immediate response from me; some of those responses being, "Shame on them!" or "Wow, what a yucky person."
I was repulsed by Pogo the Clown. I have an aversion to clowns in stories - well, because they are always the worst of the worst as bad guys and the author has created the ultimate bad guy in Pogo the Clown.
As a person and a parent, I found myself automatically emotionally attached to Stevie and Tad. I am that person who always picks the runt, the left out, and the unwanted.
As a teacher, my heart cried out for them being bullied and abused by students and I was outraged and sickened by the bullying and abuse at the hands of the school staff.
The setting is local for me, which I think is great. But the town is filled with unhappiness, resentment, jealousy and despair. The author does a nice job of describing the people in the story and their lives. The overall mood of the book is dark, overshadowed by the darkness of unsavory people.
One repeating theme to the story was how small the world is and how things happen and the number of people affected by those things. Another theme, to me, was choices. How a person could choose to walk away from their life, but that sometimes because of the choices that are made sometimes their life walks away from them.
The plot twists around itself and you wonder who will be caught, who is going to get away with what, and who gets to "win" in the end.
A rollercoaster ride of terror. I am sure that I will be looking for the next book so that I can find out what happens at the end of this road.
