Puppets Gone Wild

I was very intrigued by the concept of this book; the title alone is enough to pull you in. Siblings Louise and Mark, who are estranged, are brought back together by the sudden death of their parents. The pair is then left to deal with the remnants of their parents' home before attempting to sell it. In this instance, the remnants are a plethora of puppets that fill every nook and cranny of their childhood home. Louise and Mark's mom was a puppeteer for a Christian ministry and had thousands of homemade puppets that filled the home as decor, and as the stars of her traveling show. The visual of thousands of puppets staring back at you from every corner of the home is admittedly quite creepy.

Then enter, Pupkin, the creepiest of all the puppets and the original puppet that sparked Nancy's, the siblings' mothers', puppetry career. The book is filled with symbolism of loss and grief, and the author does a great job of weaving those themes into a story that is truly chilling. I enjoyed the visuals the author created within the plot, but at times, the puppet fighting got a little exhausting for this reader.

In the end, I felt the book delivered on being both scary and sad. The back story regarding the main puppet villain was enough to make me want to cry, even while wanting them to destroy the damn thing once and for all. I also ended up learning a few things about haunted properties and the art of puppetry in general. Overall, I would recommend this book to those who can make the mental leap that is sometimes required when reading a horror author. My husband and I call it the "brass teapot effect" because of a certain movie we watched that insisted the viewer accept the idea that a teapot could produce money under certain circumstances (maybe I'll blog about that movie later). If you can read authors like Stephen King and accept that the reality they present is the story's actual reality, then I think this book would be enjoyable for you. You can always skim past some of the more egregious puppet fights and still get to the meat of the plot, which I think was quite clever! Happy reading everyone!