Graveyard Shift
⭐⭐⭐
〰️
⭐⭐⭐ 〰️
Synopsis
Finished up this eerie book right before Halloween! I would recommend this novella as a fun short Halloween read, though I definitely think I missed pieces of the story by the time I finished it. In a small college town, five night-shift workers meet in a local graveyard for their smoke breaks. One night, a new grave appears, unmarked and abandoned. As the crew disputes their theories and begin to disperse, the grave digger returns. Their curiosity gets the best of them, as they follow the culprit all night and begin to piece together a string of strange happenings around town. The motley crew of friends decides to follow the leads and uncover the mystery that has been haunting their town for weeks - and they’re closer than they ever could have imagined.
“‘Not a body, no.’ She said, and he heard it then -
the edge of unease. ‘It’s a lot of bodies.’”
Favorites
This book started off with a bang! I felt that it really jumped from the beginning and grabbed my attention. The descriptive setting was super intriguing and really added to the anticipation of the first few moments with the gravedigger! Even though we didn’t fully know what was going on yet, this scene was so unsettling and made me want to fly through to the ending. I also really liked the multiple POVs for each character, but felt I lost a bit of their stories towards the end. I feel that these separate chapters really pointed to the characters as completely separate entities, with only their nightly smoke breaks bringing them together.
“Too many - long-term - side effects.”
Icks
Once our main characters discovered what was going on, I felt the plot hit a hard stop. They were so focused on chasing the mystery, that I felt it was resolved and “handled” too quickly. I would have loved to see more of the main characters becoming friends and coming together after their discovery. Perhaps this is just me, but I didn’t receive enough information about each member of the group to feel that “this definitely makes sense for their personality." For instance, when sjdhowuh takes the sjdhouh in her car, I was more shocked then taking it as her “aggressive persona,” that she so easily assaulted erfjerf. I understand her backstory, but felt I didn’t receive enough about her currently to understand this action.
“He’d never had a rodent phobia before, but he was pretty sure he had one now.”
Final Thoughts
Out of all the thriller and horror books I’ve read, this wasn’t one of my favorites. I was looking for an unsettling Halloween read, which this novella provided, though I wished for more depth. Perhaps I will have to give it another shot and really dig deeper into the story and characters, but it was still a good book to add to your spooky season TBR!
