Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky

*This review will contain mild spoilers.*

After rereading The Perks of Being a Wallflower for my Then Versus Now Challenge, I started in on Stephen Chbosky's newest (and only other) novel, Imaginary Friend. I was excited to get started, as I hadn't read a horror novel in a while, and I was looking forward to getting lost in a dark, suspenseful page-turner. I was also interested to see how Chbosky's writing style worked in this genre, which was completely different from the young adult contemporary novel he made his name with.

The story centers around Christopher Reese, a young boy who moves to a small Pennsylvania town with his mother, Kate, at the start of the novel. Christopher is used to moving - he's traveled with his mom several times over the past couple of years as she made her way through a string of abusive men after his father committed suicide. He's a kind boy and a good son, but a learning disability has caused him to struggle in school and made him a target for bullies. He loves his mother dearly though, and is determined to make the best of his situation. Not long after arriving, Christopher is led  by a series of mysterious events to the woods surrounding his new town. He disappears and is gone for six days.

When he finally returns to his mother, he's different. He's suddenly quite smart, begins to excels academically, and knows personal details about people just by looking at them. He can't remember anything that happened to him in the woods excepts for a hazy recollection of a "nice man" that helped him find his way out. After investigating, the police determine that he must have just gotten lost and hallucinated or dreamed up this "nice man." Christopher knows this isn't true however, because the nice man hasn't left him. He still talks to him all the time, like an imaginary friend. He tells him to do things, and Christopher obeys. The nice man is preparing him to save the world, and Christopher will do whatever it takes to protect those that he loves.

I'm not going to mince words here. I did not enjoy this novel, and I was immensely disappointed with my reading experience. The more I think about it, the more I fail to understand how Chbosky could go from The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which was so beautiful and emotional, to this absolute mess.

At 706 pages of tiny print, this is a very long story, and it felt like it. I don't know if I've ever read another novel that was so obviously in need of an editor. There were too many perspectives shown and too many events included that did not further the plot. The opening hundred pages or so were intriguing enough, but things quickly devolved into a repetitive series of action sequences in which characters ran around, screamed constantly, and were horrifically injured over and over again. The pacing was a complete disaster. There was so much running around and fighting in the second half of the novel that I became fatigued with it and stopped feeling any suspense at all. There were so many climaxes occurring that I consistently failed to understand how I still had so many pages left as I made my way through all 135(!) chapters.

Aside from the length, the plot was ultimately preachy and bizarre. Things take an oddly religious turn as the story goes on, and there is a twist towards the end of the novel that places it firmly in the genre of Christian fiction. I did not know I was reading this kind of text, and I did not appreciate this pivot. I am not a believer myself, so these types of books are not generally my first choice, but I have enjoyed some novels with Christian themes in the past. A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of my all-time favorites. However, the religious aspects of Imaginary Friend are ridiculous, clumsy, and truly cringeworthy. For example, we get both God and Satan appearing as actual characters, a crucifixion allegory, and even an immaculate conception. The last hundred pages of the novel are so heavy-handed that I ended up feeling like Chbosky tricked me into reading a book that he wanted me to think was a traditional horror story so that he could attempt to proselytize his ideas.

There were also a lot of elements of the writing style that I did not like. Certain bit of figurative language were repeated over and over. For example, I learned that a surprising amount of things are just like "the cool side of the pillow" and that many objects look like "baby teeth."  A lot of sentences were written ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS to denote screaming. Sometimes, the text got very large to show HOW LOUD SOMEONE IS YELLING. One character speakS witH a crazY jumblE oF uppercasE anD lowercasE letterS just like you used to do on your MySpace page in the early 2000s. Sometimes, words appear in
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to show extra creepiness. This all came off as amateurish. These types of techniques are things that my middle school students do. It felt gimmicky and cheap, and wholly unlike Chbosky's writing in his first novel. It's hard to believe that The Perks of Being a Wallflower was written by the same author.

There's more I could say. I could write a paragraph about how every single female character is either a slut or a victim of physical or sexual abuse. I could talk about how Chbosky should be sending parts of his royalties from this novel to Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. I could spend time talking about his decision to describe pine needles as "fresh and wet as sex." Ultimately though, my thoughts can all be summarized in a single line - this was a bad book. I hated it, and I very rarely say that in my reviews. It made me doubt Chbosky's ability as a writer. I loved The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but now I'm wondering if he simply got lucky with that one, or if maybe his protagonist's mental illness covered up a lot of weak writing. I'm so disappointed with it that I probably will not read another of his novels, at least not another one marketed as "horror."

Reading tastes are such a personal thing. There are lots of reviews on Goodreads that are very positive towards Imaginary Friend. I don't see anything appealing in it myself, but I don't begrudge anyone that does enjoy it. I would tell anyone considering giving it a shot to maybe try getting it from the library before spending your money though, and don't even bother unless you are really open to Christian themes having a prominent role in your ultra-violent horror fiction.

Challenge Tally
Then vs. Now: 8/27

Total Books Read in 2020: 32