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**LilMouse** · 10-26-2018, 07:01 AM

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

Plot:

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After suffering a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie only finds solace in books. So when she happens upon a crazed woman at the river threatening to throw a book into the water, Ollie doesn't think--she just acts, stealing the book and running away. As she begins to read the slender volume, Ollie discovers a chilling story about a girl named Beth, the two brothers who both loved her, and a peculiar deal made with "the smiling man," a sinister specter who grants your most tightly held wish, but only for the ultimate price.

Ollie is captivated by the tale until her school trip the next day to Smoke Hollow, a local farm with a haunting history all its own. There she stumbles upon the graves of the very people she's been reading about. Could it be the story about the smiling man is true? Ollie doesn't have too long to think about the answer to that. On the way home, the school bus breaks down, sending their teacher back to the farm for help. But the strange bus driver has some advice for the kids left behind in his care: "Best get moving. At nightfall they'll come for the rest of you." Nightfall is, indeed, fast descending when Ollie's previously broken digital wristwatch, a keepsake reminder of better times, begins a startling countdown and delivers a terrifying message: RUN.

Only Ollie and two of her classmates heed the bus driver's warning. As the trio head out into the woods--bordered by a field of scarecrows that seem to be watching them--the bus driver has just one final piece of advice for Ollie and her friends: "Avoid large places. Keep to small."

And with that, a deliciously creepy and hair-raising adventure begins.

Review:

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I purchased this book at NYCC.

I really like Katherine Arden's Winternight Trilogy, so more stories from her makes me very happy. I enjoyed Small Spaces a lot. I am much older than middle grade, but I thought it was an engaging and creative story. I wanted to find out the answers to all the questions presented, and I look forward to sequels that maybe go more into the Smiling Man's history and more of the bad deeds he has people do in the outside world.

Another thing I must give top marks to Katherine Arden for is making the voices of the characters totally different from her characters in Bear and the Nightingale + The Girl in the Tower. Not once while reading did I think Ollie sounded like Vasilisa. They had similar character traits - bravery, intelligence etc. - but they did feel like two different people