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MY ⭐️ RATING: 4/5
Format: Kindle Whispersync
BOOK DESCRIPTION
The Piper has come to take the children away . . .
In the fall of 1993, fifteen-year-old Angelo Mazzone sees his first dead body. The murder is linked to the Piper, the possible abductor of three other children—who haven’t been found—over the past few months.
Some people in town say the woods are haunted, but Angelo and his friends head in anyway, to search the darkness for a monster. What they find there will change who they are—and everything they once believed in . . .
MY REVIEW
December Park is my first foray outside of my comfort zone of Fantasy, Science Fiction and Historical Fiction, into the world of coming of age mystery and I felt like this was the perfect story for me to make that dalliance. The best part of this book is the way Malfi builds the world of small town life and the coming of age camaraderie of a group of friends. I can see why this is often compared to Stepehen King’s The Body (aka, the film Stand By Me). December Park certainly had good parts throughout that made me smile, laugh, and linger with tension and curiosity, while Eric G. Dove delivered a solid performance as the narrator, helping bring the story to incredible life.
The story is told through a first person point of view of 15 year old Angelo “Angie” Mazzoni, who is such a very likable character, honestly the entire group had that Stranger Things, Stand by Me (The Body by Stephen King), Super 8 & The Sandlot brings. Malfi’s story telling is fantastic and I loved the way he captured the essence of the early 90’s, there was a lot of reminiscing for me as I grew up during that same time. Though this story takes place on the east coast of the dale town of Harting Farms, Maryland, I grew up in a small east Texas town in the early 90’s as well. I would say that Malfi may have overindulged a bit on trying to sell the time with overly detailed mentions of rock bands and movies.
The friendship dynamics between Angelo, Peter, Michael, Scott and Adrian added authenticity to the story, and after reading the acknowledgments it made sense, because it seems like Malfi based the characters off of his childhood friends growing up in an area near where his story takes place. The mystery of the novel was compelling, I was eager to see what would happen next and to see if any of them would get taken by the piper. Malfi definitely kept it interesting putting the suspicion on multiple suspects with an emotional send off that worked perfectly.
I had a few issues, and after some research, I’ve found that this is a common issue within adult writers in coming of age fiction where the author sacrifices teen vocabulary authenticity for elevated writing. If the first person pov wasn’t being told by a teenager, I’d have felt better about it, but there were many times where Angelo was speaking as if he was an English major in college rather than a 15-16 year old kid. It’s just not something a teen would say and it did take me out of it a bit. I still enjoyed the story, but that did irk me every time it happened.
I mentioned December Park in my also recommend at the bottom of my “10 books to read, if you love Stranger Things” article, which was meant for 80’s only, so I mentioned it at the bottom as an added bonus. Because while this doesn’t give off the sci-fi vibes of Stranger Things, you still get that same bit of camaraderie between friends with a mystery to solve, but in a 90’s setting rather than an 80’s setting.
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