The beginning of this was really strong. I got MAJOR creep factor from Leonard and Wen’s first interaction especially. 

Then, towards the middle it started to get boring. It was just the same conversations over and over again – ‘is it real, is it all a lie? – with little substance or nuance added each time.  

I also didn’t care about any of the deaths, which was definitely due to the writing. They weren’t given anywhere near the weight they needed. I think some of this may have been a stylistic choice from Tremblay, as he tried to portray the damaged/confused thoughts of the characters, but it just meant that such moments didn’t have the necessary impact for me to care. 
 
Then, approaching the end, I realised the book was going to have an open ending… Sometimes open endings REALLY work for me, especially if I’m left with a feeling of existential dread. In this book it was just annoyingly predictable. The conversations beating me over the head about whether everything was a lie or not started to get pretty pretentious as the book neared the end. And it got so theoretical/speculative, with nothing actually happening for the last 1-2 hours of the audiobook, that we were just left with two guys pretentiously discussing their life philosophies. Zero existential dread from me, or much of anything really apart from annoyance and disappointment. 

It was all just a bit meh, which was especially disappointing as I thought the beginning of the book really was great.