Paul Tremblay
Rating: ⭐⭐ ½
Genre: Horror
Initial Impression
This is probably the third or fourth Paul Tremblay book that I have read. I was excited for it, because what could be more interesting than reading a horror story in October? Boy, I was not prepared for this letdown!
Summary
It starts with a summer night and a group of kids messing around in the woods. Thirteen-year-old Tommy Sanderson doesn’t come back. The search kicks off fast—police, helicopters, the usual—but it doesn’t take long before things stop feeling normal. His friends can’t seem to agree on what happened. Their stories don’t just conflict, but they hint at something darker. Something they’re scared to say out loud.
Tommy’s mother, Elizabeth, is barely holding it together. She’s desperate, clinging to whatever scraps she can find. Then weird things start happening: shadows where they shouldn’t be, noises in the house, and torn notebook pages showing up out of nowhere. Pages that look like Tommy’s, filled with strange drawings and ramblings about something called “Devil’s Rock.” It’s not clear if he was imagining things or if something really pulled him in.
The story jumps between Elizabeth’s unraveling in the present and the boys’ hazy memories of that night. Slowly, you start to piece together what might’ve happened, but the picture never fully clears. There’s talk of a man in the woods, secret dares, and a local legend that feels like it’s bleeding into real life. Tremblay doesn’t give you answers so much as questions that echo. Is this a ghost story? A breakdown? Just a tragedy warped by fear?
By the end, you get flashes of truth—panic, guilt, maybe a final moment that wasn’t meant to go that far. But it’s all fragmented. The emotional hit is there, but it’s softened by the slow, foggy way the story unfolds. You’re left unsettled, not because of what you know, but because of what you don’t.
Characters
The characters are deliberately ordinary. They are people who feel like they could live next door. Most of Tommy's emotional burden is placed on his mother, Elizabeth. Her grief hits hard in some scenes, but in others, it feels strangely muted. That might be due to the constant shifts in time and perspective, which keep us at arm’s length.
Tommy’s friends, Josh and Luis, are drawn with a kind of adolescent fuzziness. They’re scared, confused, and clearly hiding something, but their personalities start to blur together after a while. You’re left with impressions—guilt, fear, maybe shame—but not much depth.
Character development is subtle to the point of being almost static. Tremblay depended here a lot on ambiguity and realism, which results in nobody truly changing or maturing. In their own unique ways, they simply fall apart. Given the themes of loss and uncertainty, that may be the point, but it also makes the story feel emotionally flat at times. You want more reaction, more insight, but the narrative keeps its distance.
Writing Style
Tremblay writes in a fragmented, third-person limited style, mostly through Elizabeth’s eyes but occasionally shifting to others. I don’t know how to say it here, but the story has many abrupt transitions and half-thoughts that feel like they were all done on purpose to increase the suspense and the thrill. However, I feel this method has backfired, at least for me. It is intended to depict trauma, and occasionally it captures that hazy, uneasy sensation in a good way, but at times it also seems disjointed and disorganized.
The pacing is slow, and the timeline jumps around so much that it’s easy to lose your footing. There’s atmosphere, sure, but it often comes at the expense of clarity. You might find yourself rereading passages just to figure out where—or when—you are.
Setting and Atmosphere
The setting—a quiet New England town bordered by dense, whispering woods—is spot-on. Borderland State Park feels like a character on its own. It’s shady, damp, and at times even eerily ominous. You can practically smell the moss and hear the cicadas. It's the sort of place where stories linger and things disappear.
Atmosphere is where the book both succeeds and falters. It’s heavy, oppressive, and full of dread, but it rarely shifts. The mood stays locked in a kind of emotional stasis. That might be intentional, mirroring Elizabeth’s grief, but it can wear you down. The tension doesn’t build so much as hover, and after a while, that sameness starts to dull the impact.
Final Thoughts
Disappearance at Devil’s Rock has all the ingredients for something haunting: a missing child, eerie woods, unreliable memories, and hints of the supernatural. But the execution doesn’t quite land. The constant timeline shifts sap the suspense, and the emotional beats get lost in the fog.
There are moments of brilliance, no doubt. Tremblay captures the ache of loss and the unease of not knowing what’s real. But those moments are scattered, and the story never quite pulls them together into something cohesive. It’s a book that wants to haunt you, but instead of whispering, it sort of mutters and trails off.
If you’re into slow-burn mysteries where ambiguity is the point, this might work for you. For me, though, it felt like a great idea weighed down by its own structure. I’d call it a 2.5-star read—interesting, but not quite satisfying.
- Grief and Parental Desperation
- Ambiguity of Reality vs. Imagination
- Adolescence and Peer Influence
- Fear of the Unknown
- Guilt and Responsibility
- Isolation and Loneliness
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