Review: Give Me Something Good to Eat

By D. W. Gillespie

New York, Delacorte Press, 2024. Fiction. 262 pages.

I went totally out of my comfort zone with my choice for this book review. I decided I wanted to read a spooky book for October, even though I typically do not read scary books. This book gave me shivers from the very start, with a giant spider on the cover and spider webs drawn on the page of each new chapter.

Halloween is the best night of the year in a rural town that is obsessed with monsters and all kinds of creepy things. There is one major problem, however. Each year on Halloween a child goes missing! But after they go missing, no one remembers the children, except for the main character Mason Miller.

When Mason's little sister becomes the next in a long string of missing children, it’s up to Mason and his friends to figure out the town's bizarre mystery. This book has a lot to offer: monsters, heroes, a werewolf, zombies, an enchanted scarecrow, a rat man, and pickled toes, to give some examples. We get to witness a brother willing to sacrifice for his sister, work with his friends, make tough decisions, and ponder on unintended consequences.

In some of the chapters the story is told from the perspective of Mason's little sister, Meg. She loves her older brother but notices they don’t seem to be as close as they used to be. As she is describing the complicated way their relationship is evolving, she says something that made me laugh out loud: “Whatever happens to teenagers, please don’t let it happen to me.”

I enjoyed this book a lot! I didn’t expect to become so fully invested in cheering for Mason to succeed. The author has a great way of making the characters come to life by using vivid imagery. For a spooky good time this Halloween season, I recommend Give Me Something Good to Eat.

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