The Slender Man

The Slender Man, probably the most literally titled book featuring a version of the internet meme legend, the Slender Man, is a YA horror novel that I’ve been meaning to read for a while now and finally bit the bullet and plunged in.Turning a Slender Man story into a full length novel isn’t easy. There’s no blurry video clips for fans to pour over or disjointed blog posts to follow every day. It has to have a story that is long enough to fill a book but still keep the suspense up using a monster that, honestly, is creepier the less you use him.So to get to the heart of things, is this a good Slender Man story? Yeah, it is. It’s a very archetypal story in the mythos. It follows Alyssa as her town is struck by a tragedy and soon kids are disappearing. She struggles to figure out what is happening and who will be next. There’s a spreading sickness, nosebleeds, and vivid nightmares of a tall shadow-man that haunts the family of the survivors of the tragedy. About what you’d expect, really the main thing that diverges from a “standard Slender Man” story is the main man himself.There’s lots of different versions of Slender Man and this book goes with the ‘shadow people’ version, sans trademark suit. Yes, no suit for the Slender Man. For me, part of the creepiness is the ‘almost human’ quality that the suit gives but it’s certainly not a deal breaker. The burning eyes Alyssa gets when trying to look at him, the looming shadow she sees in the middle of a party that everyone else misses, those are all creepy and can make up for losing the suit. But I think the part that lost me a bit was the display of emotion. Anger, evil joy, frustration, Slender Man displays them all and made me feel more like he was just an evil spirit or demon.Luckily, while the synopsis makes it sound like she can fight him or try to, it’s more that she’s trying to figure out how to escape him. Yes, if you read it, there’s some hair splitting going on here but I don’t think she ever thinks she’d kill him or really ultimately defeat him, just get away with her and her loved ones.Alyssa is Jewish in the book and one of my favorite parts was the integration of those cultural elements into the story. Now, a lot like Tribe 12, Slender Man has been around a while and Alyssa’s bubbe has witnessed him taking children in the past during WW2. Bubbe has seen some serious crap in her time and she knows what’s been attracted to the town by the deaths of so many children and helps Alyssa deal with it. Bubbe also knows that Alyssa has to be the one to do the dangerous stuff, adults can’t sense the Slender Man. Bubbe was just great and probably my favorite character.On the not so great side, there was a lot of “telling” when “showing” would have been more effective. The book was written in First Person Present with an abundance of unneeded dialog tags. I know the First Person Present style seems to be the rage in YA these days but it felt like it was fighting the natural narration style the author has. Changing the book to First Person Past would also make sense for a number of other reasons and it is almost written that way to begin with. Strange tangents also litter the story with unneeded details but luckily those only tend to go on for a few paragraphs. There is also quite a lot of sense filtering going on. In short, the book just needed an editor to go through a lot of that stuff and help clean it up.As I was reading, I had this sense that it was a YA book but I didn’t look it up until after I was done. It certainly is. This would explain why no one uses curse words even though if you think you are being drained of life by an evil entity and he just stole your brother, not a single f-bomb is uttered. It might also explain the ‘almost horror’ of some scenes that could have gotten a lot darker. Unending nose bleeds can be terrifying but if they are just glossed over without descriptions of the coppery taste and chunks of clot that come out (or some description of how it affects her) it almost makes them seem like not a big deal. Alyssa should have been in the hospital multiple times from her injuries especially when they suspect a concussion. I think that avoiding some of the darker stuff gave the story a little bit of a shallow quality to it. Alyssa hardly seems phased at times by losing her best friend or her brother, when she thinks he is gone. Worse, though, her parents don’t seem to see the terrible trauma their daughter is going through and even when helping, they delay the help until it is too late. This turns into “plot-induced stupidity” because the last part of the book wouldn’t even happen if they had all just hopped in the car and left instead of waiting for a plane.In the end, it’s a flawed book but it is still far better than most Slender Man mythos stories. It has enough interesting points that it’s a good light read. Given the subject matter though, don’t expect soul-crushing despair or pants-crapping terror.

For a story based off a creepypasta from the internet, I have to give this author props for having the ability to create his own original story about the creature. Now of course, it's not exactly "original" persay, it does follow the same formula as most slenderman creepypastas would of "You begin to notice subtle creepy things which slowly drown you in hysteria and oh, who is this tall lookin' fella?" [Think MarbleHornets meets a young teenage girl ] so original? No, BUT never would I say it's not an entertaining read. The reading is very easy to follow and I think the benefit of that is that all people of all ages can come to really enjoy this book, especially given that halloween is just around the corner. I would definitely recommend this book as a gift to anyone who loves the Slenderman Lore, it's not an all around terrifying book, but it is creepy and it's not difficult to visualize what's happening as you progress through the story.I would've given this a 4.5 out of 5 stars if I could, but alas, I cannot give this an all around 5 stars because when I think of Slenderman, I think of terror, this book is not all out terrifying. But as I said before, it is creepy and an entertaining read.

I was anxious to read this book after learning so much about the game and the myth. So when I got this book, I read it in less than a week. It was a plot and character riven story that kept me intrigued and itching to read on. The scares where very intense. Every time the Slender Man would appear I would shiver, unlike while I'm playing the game where I just laugh. All the negative reviews are concerned with over used phrases and spelling errors, and one who said they didn't like the description which is stupid because the book is MUCH better than the description. The over use of phrases is common in this book which makes some of the writing feel clunky and hard to read for some people, but most people could get over that. Since it seems to be an independent novel, the spelling errors really don't matter, and it is easy to look past them. If you looking for books like the game, look elsewhere. I think I'm the first one to mention that the Slender Man does not wear a suit. Also, if you looking for the eight pages, your going to be disappointed. Other than that the novel is perfect. It has rich characters, emotions and plot, and I look forward to reading another one of the authors books. I am very pleased. Just next time, MAKE THE SLENDER MAN WEAR A SUIT!

I really wanted to like this, and I do enjoy the storyline, but there are some issues that I can't look past as far as quality goes. Here are a few pros and cons.Cons:There are countless grammatical errors in this book. I'm stunned it was published like this. I always thought books had to be edited first, but it seems like someone took their rough draft and published as is.The main character is bland and underwhelming. This definitely reads like a female protagonist written by a man. Very stereotypical and shallow.The writing is passionless. I'm sure if you read a lot of books, you know that feeling of reading a great book with lots of raw emotion and relatable characters. This isn't it. This book takes sensitive and raw subjects like child loss and grief and somehow manages to make it read like a newspaper weather report. Seriously, I've read fanfictions written by preteens that were more interesting than this.Pros: the paper is nice quality and the cover art is beautiful.

weird , really liked it , looking forward to next in series.

An excelent story, my first Slender book and I am read for more! The author has a greta talent for horror scenaries.

Daughter thought the book was only ok, not as exciting as she'd thought!!!

I bought this for a Christmas present for my teen as she has an interest in this genre.She is happy with the quality of the writing and I found the delivery and quality excellent.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It had some interesting characters and an interesting storyline and plot