Small Spaces, by Katherine Arden

I had high hopes for this scary book, book 1 in a short series by an author I'm not yet familiar with other than Small Spaces. The back cover has quotes from authors of scary books I love, like Jonathan Auxier of The Night Gardener and R.L Stine, author of the Goosebumps books! However, I also know that sometimes awesome reviews from authors means the publisher is really trying to get the book to sell...and rightly so, as that is where they make their money.

Anyway, Small Spaces is touted as a super scary book, and although it's fun, and scary like Goosebumps books are scary (meaning fun-scary, mostly, and not going to keep you awake at night), it's not amazing. It was worth finishing, and good if you want "scary-lite", but if you want really scary, or even really well-written, you have many other options; April Henry, Katie Alender, Jonathan Auxier, Peg Kehret, even Robert Cormier or Stephen King, for more mature options.  If you love Goosebumps and want more like it, give this book a try. If you want truly scary, go to one of these other authors, who write truly scary material and write it very well! 3 paws.