The Pall Bearers Club

Paul Tremblay always writes in a way that makes me go “Agh!” (Complimentary) Having read a few of his books from 2020 to now, tell me why in the year of our lord 2024 did it just now hit me that ambiguous endings are his thing? I knew I was dumb, but dang. Anyway, about the book: 1 star off because even though I feel like Art was supposed to be annoying, he seriously annoyed me. I’m so glad for Mercy’s annotations and her thoughts at the end of each chapter, without her I don’t think I would have made it 🫣 I have to be honest, I bought this like, a year ago when I was still testing if PT was going to be an auto buy author of mine and never even cracked it open for a cursory glance at the pages so imagine my surprise and delight to see annotations in the margins! It’s my favorite, favorite, FAVORITE thing and is it the reason I rated this book so high? Maybe 👀 Or maybe I did it because it felt like the punk rock thing to do. I’ll never tell 😉 Also lovedddd the sly A Head Full of Ghosts reference, I see you, Paul. I will say in the beginning I felt like this book was the proto Horror Movie and then towards the end I was like “No wait, is this book the forbidden love child of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts?” And then the ending happened and I was like, I think so? And then the other ending happened and I was like, maybe not? If this review seems confused it’s because I’m freaking confused, bro! Idk man, this is one of those books that you just have to read and decide for yourself how you feel.