I was already at least partially a Paul Tremblay believer, having read A Head Full of Ghosts a few years ago, but I put off reading The Cabin at the End of the World until a friend's recommendation reminded me to get around to it.* I'm glad that I did, as this harrowing novel is the best bad time I've had in a while. It asks the reader what they would do in the characters' places, offering few helpful guideposts and no satisfactory answers. The horror arises from that ambiguity, along with the sick feeling of watching characters you care about make one unfortunate decision after another, knowing that their options are limited and their capacity for reason is compromised. It all ratchets up into a haunting conclusion that seems tailor-made to piss people off and that guarantees I will never stop thinking about this book.

Also, the first chapter is a master class in setting tone and building tension. If you can read the first chapter without getting hooked, then I don't know what to say. You're a very different reader than I.

*I put off reading more Tremblay in general, because I started Disappearance at Devil's Rock but could not get into it. I will be revisiting that one, though, because now I've decided to read Tremblay's entire oeuvre.

Edit 7.18.21: I just read Tremblay's liner notes for this book, and I love what he has to say about the conclusion (both because it's well-put and because I agree with it):

Spoiler

My defiant hope for you is that this book ultimately becomes about the choice Eric and Andrew make and not whether or not the world is actually ending. I mean, shit, their world has already been definitively shattered, don’t you think? The book is about the choice: do they and do we choose fear or that most defiant of all hopes, love?