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Clown in a Cornfield is one scary read

Picture
By Amelia McAvoy 
October 27, 2021
​     Adam Cesare’s debut in young adult literature, Clown in a Cornfield, translates the charm of the cheesy slashers of decades past from screen to page. Despite having only been published for a little over a year, the book has generated a lot of buzz on social media. So much so, that both a sequel and a film adaptation are currently in the works.  
     The story follows teenage Quinn Maybrook whose father has just moved their small family of two to the remote town of Kettle Springs in hopes of a fresh start. However, Quinn does not just find a fresh start. She happens to arrive right in time for the town to be plagued by a homicidal killer masquerading as the town mascot, Frendo the Clown.    Cesare builds suspense masterfully, establishing an ominous atmosphere from the very first page. The tension and oddities of the small Missouri town provide a natural transition into the carnage. And carnage, this book is chalk full of. Bodies drop left and right in this fast-paced slasher, and each kill is described in gory detail sure to leave even the most unfazed readers squirming. The sequences involving the clown are chilling and vivid enough for the reader to imagine as a scene straight from a horror movie. 
     However, while this book does horror and violence well, it lacks flowing dialogue and fleshed-out characters. The author appears as if he is trying too hard to connect with his teenage audience. Instead of helping to establish realistic, 21st century teenage characters, the use of slang and pop culture references in the dialogue actually has the opposite effect. It feels forced and creates clunky conversations between characters that take readers out of the story. As for the characters, none of them have backgrounds beyond the main character and even she, despite being given a tragic past, has no distinguishable personality. All of the characters tend to blend together which makes it difficult for the reader to form any sort of attachment to them or feel any emotions when they are put in mortal peril.    
     While this book may appear on the surface to be just a mindless bloodbath, Cesare cleverly uses the horror genre to deliver biting political commentary. He plays on the fear of the readers created by the horror aspects of the story to reveal the horrors of the real life political climate during the Trump era. For some, the political undertones of the novel may be a deterrent, but the horror genre is no stranger to politics. Jordan Peele’s Get Out received critical acclaim for its discussion about race in America. Even as far back as the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, an alien thriller that echoed the McCarthyism sentiments of the era, politics intertwined itself with horror. At times the analogy did become a little too obvious, but the tie-in to real life added an even more frightening layer to the story and left the reader thinking long after the book finished about the future of politics in America.  
    Overall, the book was a strong three out of five stars for me. It was grisly and fast-paced, reminiscent of the classic slashers we all know and love but with very topical themes. The unremarkable characters made it hard for this book to be more than just a light, scary read for the Halloween season, but as a lifelong horror fan, that didn’t stop me from enjoying it. I would recommend this book to fans of slasher movies who can appreciate the horror and bloodshed without taking it too seriously. 

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