From the jacket illustration, the cover summary, the hashtags, and the way this book was advertised to me many many times, it sold itself as a paranormal horror story, a haunting psychological tale: Does Christopher really have an imaginary friend, and if so, who is his malevolent, manipulative new buddy.... But that description is not entirely accurate, and this book lost a lot of stars just from false advertising and missed expectations. This is a doomsday story, it is Christian fiction: What if The Devil caused all the evils of the world, tempting humanity to humor their deepest fears and desires, and it was down to one boy (CHRISTopher) to be so pure of heart as to sacrifice himself so that humanity could heal. Sure...TECHNICALLY the endless descriptions of hell-on-earth ARE horrifying, but they don't tell me anything that a Bible study hasn't told us all already. And sure... TECHNICALLY Christopher doesn't KNOW that the Biblical figures and powers are literal for a good long while, and he wrestles internally, wondering if he's crazy and who the paranormal figures are guiding him through these terrible events. But it's not a psychological horror, or even a haunting. It's a temptation parable. Tale as old as time.

Adjusting my expectations, I find myself running into the same problem I have with all Armagedon stories: Who is this for? A Christian audience might enjoy the love-conquers-evil message at the tail end, but they would have to slog through 600 pages of literally hellish content, first. And a non-Christian audience might feel cheated, like this book doesn't really have anything to say about the human condition that hasn't been said before, and even then the message is dated and toxic: The problems of the world are no one's fault, no one chose to be evil, we were all manipulated by a hellish boogeyman, and if we just woke up one day and CHOSE to ignore our doubts/fears/anger/anguish/psychoses/abuses/etc we could have heaven-on-earth.

I found the book, in general, to have some real Boomer energy. The core heroes of the story are 2 children with unconditional love for their families, a single mom who pulled herself up by her bootstraps, a sheriff who won't quit, and a wise and neglected veteran. They're all white and Catholic. The central conflict is that there is a war on Christmas. Literally, a war will breakout ON Christmas Day. The prose falls into a rant at one point about how children in elementary schools have to say "Winter" or "Holiday" pageants, instead of Christmas. One person of color who appears minorly in one chapter is an Indigenous woman who is at a casino (yuck, stereotype much?), and she is described as "Indian - Squaw, not Bombay".... Raaaacist. The author repeatedly describes women, or introduces them, as "pretty", as if that were a personality trait, as if being pretty equals being a kind person. Also, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but this author equates "pretty" with "110 lbs". Many times groups of people are broken down into cis genders: All the men did this, all the women did this, life was simpler when men were expected to blah, and women were only expected to blah. Say nothing of children, the children in this book were written by someone who hasn't known a child in quite some time. Turtlenecks? Four-Square? Favorite book is Frankenstein? The story is meant to be modern, but it often has some Stranger Things or Stephen King energy just because the language is soooooo dated! It's as if this book MEANT to timestamp itself in the 70's or 80's.

But my last quibble with the language is what put me off this author for good X_X. Knowing what I know about the reveal in Perks of Being a Wallflower... I was veeeeery upset by the amount of pedophilic language and imagery in Imaginary Friend. A lot of attention is drawn to naked children, children in sexual situations, or even just sexual imagery like children waking up from wet dreams or having dreams about lying on top of naked adults. The sexualization of children didn't heighten the horror, it just made me question the proclivities of the author. I worry for what this author has endured or perpetrated.

If you're nostalgic for Stranger Things or The Stand, you might enjoy this. If you don't like your Sunday School mixed in your Horror Story, don't bother.