the idea was great and the spooky and horrific moments were pretty well down too.
as was the entire elk head woman. because that’s just a terrifying idea!

but overall the book didn’t fully work for me.

it felt too chopped up -no pun intended at all- and too much like short stories but not in a good way.
for me there was the clear connection between the different character stories missing. sure they where friends and this one event connected them.
but we jumped from one to the next and i just missed why.
why this specific order of characters?
why choose those specific moments of the characters?
why didn’t they try to make it up somehow once it all started?
why didn’t they try to help each other when they noticed something was going on because they had to have noticed right?
why elk head woman?
and why is it that some belobe she can transform into other beings but not all?
and why did she go after some ihrer familymembers but not all?


there are just so many why and what questions left for me after finishing the book that i am not super happy with it.


i think the book overall was missing a good structural build up to work for me.

maybe if it would have started with the story of the elk murder and then sectioning off into each of the men and their stories one after the other? because that way we would have gotten a bit more a connection to the men because we „meet“ them as a friend group doing something stupid together and then having to live the consequences of that.

i just didn’t connect with any of the characters at all and while what is happening to them should be terrifying, i just didn’t care because i didn’t really know them enough to care.

so something about and with the book didn’t work for me.

or maybe i haven’t read enough actual horror books to understand the appeal of what made this a great one?

i liked the idea. and i liked the „big bad“.

but the rest didn’t work that well in my option.