Absolutely brilliant. I have never read a book which captures the flaws and the beauty of being human and growing up so well. When Hector causes an accident, he feels the consequences he faces are unjust. He runs away into the woods and encounters a strange old lady in a cottage. She offers him a chance of vengeance: she can literally make those who wronged him disappear. But Hector isn't the only one seeking revenge...A day later, Hector's best friend Tommo wakes up. Everything seems normal at first....but why does he experience fleeting memories of a boy called Hector? Later that day, Tommo is on the scene of an accident in the woods. Fleeing the scene, hurt by someone he considered a friend, he encounters a strange old lady in a cottage...

Oh noooo!!!! This is smart, thrilling, riveting suspense and family drama but it’s not a great choice to read it during your quarantine and chill times because it’s claustrophobic, dark, suffocating, apocalyptic story. He’d tried to say this, to explain the knots and confusions the questions tied him up in, but no one else seemed to feel the same trouble, or they simply didn’t understand. I read this book in two sittings, and when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. In fact, I finished it last week and I’m still thinking about it. The ending is not tied up in a neat bow, which will bother some readers, but I thought it was perfect and fitting. This won’t be for everyone, but it was certainly for me.Do you remember how we were all made to read those "moral stories" as kids? Well, as a mom, a story teller and a book lady to the children of my city for several years now, I personally dislike those. They are preachy, they are oversimplified—a child did not listen and so they were taught a tough lesson—and they make reading boring. Over the course of the next few days, tensions surface between the two families and fear is the overriding emotion. There is no cellphone, radio, or tv reception, leaving them totally cut off from the world with no idea what is happening beyond their four walls. Bestselling author Alexandra Christo, author of TikTok sensation To Kill a Kingdom, introduces her new book, The Night Hunt (Hot Key Books), a dark...

I do not intend to summarise the plot, that would be just too prosaic an approach for a book that definitely needs reading and sinking into to appreciate it! Atmospheric, character-driven, and thought-provoking, this is a literary mix of genres that totally worked. The writing is sharp and smart. My two complaints are worth overlooking: the occasional use of obscure words, and TMI with some personal details. Every new chapter took the book in a new direction, and yet I still found the prose lagging. It was both introspective, and shallow. Sorry, these aren't very nice things (they're also contradictory), but it's how I felt. The Worlds We Leave Behind is a story about friendship, retribution, and finding the strength to face down monsters, aimed at younger readers who enjoyed Stranger Things.

Four-time Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke is an actor, director, author, and father to Stranger Things star Maya Hawke. In his portrayal of Clay, Esmail saw “one of the more fascinating characters in this film.” It felt like Alam did not trust his readers to understand subtext or character development. Everything is spelt out, excrutiatingly. So much that I started to wonder if something really obvious was flying over my head. By the time I finished this book, all goodwill I had towards this book based on the incredible premise was lost.

Hector, or Hex, is a mystery to even himself. Sometimes he does things and says things he doesn’t mean to, and it can get him in trouble. After an incident where a girl gets hurt, a time when he makes a silly mistake that he doesn’t mean, it casts a bad light over him with the heavy shadow of blame. Mad at the world, himself and life in general, Hex escapes to the woods for clarity. But when he stumbles upon an old woman in a cottage, one that offers him a hefty deal on a platter that seems intriguing—that she has the power to wipe the world of those who had wronged him—Hex can’t quite believe it. All he’d have to do is accept and they’ll be forgotten about forever. This book was a wonderful read on so many levels for both middle grade and older readers. It has an almost nostalgic quality that both left me confused about which decade this book is set in and respecting the timeless feel. The illustrations are beautiful and haunting and are a perfect reflection of the book's mood. It truly does evoke the atmosphere and the themes of Stranger Things and also reminds me of select Neil Gaiman's works.A compelling, original story that follows parallel events affecting interconnected children that explores themes around friendship and betrayal, and the consequences of revenge and retribution and finding the strength to forgive and seek redemption.