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 are then left to deal with the remnants of their parents home before attempting to sell it. The remnants in this instance 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 the puppets and the original puppet that sparked Nancy's, the sibling's mothers', puppetry career. The book is filled with symbolism regarding loss and grief and the author does a great job of weaving those concepts into a story that truly is rather 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 like the book delivered on being simultaneously scary and quite 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 for those that can mentally make the leap that is at times 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 that the viewer get on board with the fact that a teapot could produce money within certain circumstances (maybe I'll blog about that movie later.) If you can read authors like Stephen King and accept that the reality they are presenting is the actual reality within the story, 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!
