The Saturday Night Ghost Club - Kick off to Spooky Season!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I plan to focus on these genres for the month of October, aka Spooky Season: Thriller, Horror, and Mystery. My first pick was The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson. I was excited to read this because of the fun, colorful design on the cover and the generally good reviews it received on Goodreads and Amazon. After reading this novel, I realize the cover gives a few glimpses into what the story is about.

As usual, I want to start this review with a brief summary:

It's the 1980's in Niagara Falls, and Jake Baker is a lonely 12 year old who spends the majority of his time hanging out with his uncle Calvin who owns the local "Occultorium" full of supernatural oddities that match his general approach towards life. Uncle C, as Jake calls him, is quite an eccentric character and reminded me a lot of the actor Jack Black. Jake describes him as, "...a man who looked like a Grateful Dead roadie" (page 28), and is often seen in tie dye and wearing his Cthulhu bracelet. Uncle C has one friend, named Lexington "Lex" Galbraith, who runs the neighborhood video emporium and tags along on their adventures. One day, Jake is getting bullied at school when a girl comes to his aid. Her name is Dove Yellowbird and Jake soon finds out she has a brother in his grade named Billy Yellowbird. Billy and Jake investigate haunted areas around town in a club they form with Calvin called, "The Saturday Night Ghost Club". From there we, the reader, follow Jake as he recounts what happened that summer while simultaneously reading about his current life. We also see how uncle Calvin's life led him to where he is now, and how that shaped Jake as a person.

I know, I know, that summary was a bit choppy. But in all honestly, it totally reflects how I felt about this novel. It started out SO strong. I was highlighting and underlining quotes in the book left and right that I found magnificent and truly breathtaking. The imagery was fantastic as well as the descriptions of, well, almost everything. I was fully transported into 1980's Niagara Falls and could see the Occultorium in my head so perfectly. And then somewhere along the line, about midway through the book I would say, the novel lost me. From that point on, I really struggled to finish it and even considered DNF'ing it. When I picked up this book, I was under the impression that I would be spooked in one sense or the other. Looking at the cover and even reading the title of the book, I thought that this novel was largely going to be about seeking out urban legends and be chocked full of nail-biting scenarios. I was, unfortunately, wrong. 

While there were some spooky bits throughout the novel that did raise my heart rate, such as the usage of the "spirit phone' starting on page 37, and when Billy, Jake, and Calvin broke into the funeral home, I can't say that there was anything else that really stuck out to me. The adventures the SNGC took into the lake, tunnel, and abandoned house were a bit scary, but overall I could tell that there was some underlying reason why that particular part mattered to the book as whole, kind of like a carrot being dangled down but not so gracefully. I was disappointed that I wasn't all that scared, but the more I read the novel I realized that being scared actually wasn't the point of the novel at all; the novels main focus was that of Jake and his coming-of-age story, and how Uncle Calvin came to be, well, Uncle Calvin.

And now on to one thing I liked and one thing I disliked about this novel!

One of the things that I couldn't get behind in this novel was the extreme detail of Jake's career as a neurosurgeon. I was not all that fascinated with the long descriptions of the human brain, and I felt like it really took away from the story as a whole. I think if the beginning of the novel was added to the end, where we find out the reason why Jake chose to become a neurosurgeon, it would've made a lot more sense. I also felt like I was mislead as a whole. When I was finished with the novel, I was left feeling like there was so much more that could've been said or done. It just didn't deliver for me.

The one thing I really enjoyed was that this novel is just as much about Jake as it is about Calvin and the tragedy that he faced in his lifetime. Davidson takes us on a journey of introducing us to Jakes loving uncle, then kind of dipping us into his psyche a little at a time until at last we find out what happened and why he is alone and so fascinated with the occult and the paranormal. I felt as if I was looking down on Calvin and watching his life play out right in front of my eyes. 

Overall, I semi-enjoyed this book, but if you could see me in front of you right now I would be twisting my right hand back and forth in a "meh" sort of fashion. It held my attention to a fault, but as I stated before it also lost me just as quickly as it captured me. I was pretty disappointed because I thought I was going to really love this book. I'm hoping that my next pick for Spooky Season will get me more in the mood to watch a scary movie and start decorating for Halloween!