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A review by heroturnedhuman
Let's Go Play at the Adams' by Mendal W. Johnson
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I had to let this sit for a few days and truly let this book stew in my head before I could sit down and write this review. "Let's Go Play at the Adams'" is unrelenting in its cruelness. It is the only book I have read that left me feeling genuinely awful, both emotionally and physically, after reading it. To call it "A Novel of Lingering Horror" is devastatingly accurate.
This book had been on my TDR for well over a year. I hunted it down in every local and corporate bookstore, on every website imaginable, and copies were either impossible to find or painfully expensive. When I saw an in print copy sitting on a end cap celebrating the release of "Paperbacks from Hell", I was over the moon! And while I certainly don't regret finding it and I am overjoyed that Grady Hendrix has brought new interest to this book, it left me with a lot of mixed emotions.
It's definitely a slow burn. The horror of Barbara's situation creeps in like a thick molasses. This pretty, young babysitter wakes up in her well do to client's house, bound and gagged by their precocious children, Bobby and Cindy. Barbara, and often times the reader, truly believes that things can possibly continue to escalate, right? After all, they're just kids.
And "just kids", they do seem to be. As you follow along through the minds and viewpoints of each of the major players in this book, it is blatantly obvious just how childlike their thoughts and emotions are, in the worst of ways. The children are self aware (selfish?) enough to understand that what they're doing will come with massive and unpleasant consequences, they're also too immature and emotionally undeveloped to fully accept that what they're doing is not just wrong, but sadistic. Barbara makes her discomfort and pain clear in the small stretches of time she's ungagged, and yet it just doesn't seem to register. Or rather, it does, but since it isn't hurting THEM, does the pain even really matter?
This entire thing, all the callousness and mistreatment, all the pain and terror they cause to Barbara, all of it is a game. Even the older children (16 and 17 for context) see Barbara as a doll, as a conquest, a challenge that was conquered and a prize now completely at their disposal.
And oh, poor Barbara. Somehow seen to some of these wretched youths as setting herself so far above them, as seeing herself as better than, smarter than, so haughty and tightly wound. This couldn't be further from the truth. She is kind and gentle and lovely, even by the children's own admission, and that somehow pisses them off even more. Barbara is and should be their great unifier, on the cusp, rapidly approaching adulthood and yet still very much a child. And still, the viewpoint of a child can notoriously be black vs white, good vs evil, US vs THEM. And unfortunate as it may be for her, Barbara is THEM.
At the risk of droning on and on, I'll conclude my review with this. LGPATA does exactly what it sets out to do. It's unflinching and unjust in its depiction of human cruelty. The ending will leave you angry, and hopeless and maybe even, like me, somehow a bit empty. 4/5 Stars.
This book had been on my TDR for well over a year. I hunted it down in every local and corporate bookstore, on every website imaginable, and copies were either impossible to find or painfully expensive. When I saw an in print copy sitting on a end cap celebrating the release of "Paperbacks from Hell", I was over the moon! And while I certainly don't regret finding it and I am overjoyed that Grady Hendrix has brought new interest to this book, it left me with a lot of mixed emotions.
It's definitely a slow burn. The horror of Barbara's situation creeps in like a thick molasses. This pretty, young babysitter wakes up in her well do to client's house, bound and gagged by their precocious children, Bobby and Cindy. Barbara, and often times the reader, truly believes that things can possibly continue to escalate, right? After all, they're just kids.
And "just kids", they do seem to be. As you follow along through the minds and viewpoints of each of the major players in this book, it is blatantly obvious just how childlike their thoughts and emotions are, in the worst of ways. The children are self aware (selfish?) enough to understand that what they're doing will come with massive and unpleasant consequences, they're also too immature and emotionally undeveloped to fully accept that what they're doing is not just wrong, but sadistic. Barbara makes her discomfort and pain clear in the small stretches of time she's ungagged, and yet it just doesn't seem to register. Or rather, it does, but since it isn't hurting THEM, does the pain even really matter?
This entire thing, all the callousness and mistreatment, all the pain and terror they cause to Barbara, all of it is a game. Even the older children (16 and 17 for context) see Barbara as a doll, as a conquest, a challenge that was conquered and a prize now completely at their disposal.
And oh, poor Barbara. Somehow seen to some of these wretched youths as setting herself so far above them, as seeing herself as better than, smarter than, so haughty and tightly wound. This couldn't be further from the truth. She is kind and gentle and lovely, even by the children's own admission, and that somehow pisses them off even more. Barbara is and should be their great unifier, on the cusp, rapidly approaching adulthood and yet still very much a child. And still, the viewpoint of a child can notoriously be black vs white, good vs evil, US vs THEM. And unfortunate as it may be for her, Barbara is THEM.
At the risk of droning on and on, I'll conclude my review with this. LGPATA does exactly what it sets out to do. It's unflinching and unjust in its depiction of human cruelty. The ending will leave you angry, and hopeless and maybe even, like me, somehow a bit empty. 4/5 Stars.