 I feel the same way about Ari Aster’s Midsommer, which I love. You know exactly where that film is going but the point isn’t to be surprised at every turn, it’s just to enjoy every turn. This story was like that. It gets pretty creepy pretty quickly, and then you’re just along for the ride as things get progressively stressful and descend into darker and darker places, all the while with the feeling, ‘ah shit, Sophie’s f***ed.’ Or maybe I just read it that way because I’m eternally pessimistic Mr. Sandman is a novella due to be released in December by Absinthe Books, written by SJI Holliday. It is a quick read (in fact, short enough to also work well as part of a thick short story collection), which always appeals to me because I love breaking up longer reads with something I like to call ‘bite-size’ horror. This review is mostly spoiler-free (I have to discuss some elements but I will not reveal the ending or main story beats after the initial set-up). Sophie and Matthew have been seeing each other for a few months, and Sophie isn’t all that thrilled about it. Matthew is fine, but there’s no spark, no spontaneity, no oomph in the relationship. You gotta have the oomph. They take a day trip together and Sophie is drawn in by the bom bom bom bom of a familiar song, where she meets an unfamiliar man, who is able to make her an unusual promise. Sophie makes a wish, and then things go awry. This story is your classic “be careful what you wish for” scenario. It’s Leprachaun without a shrieking Jennifer Aniston. I jest, actually, it’s more original than that. I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to remind you all that Leprachaun exists, and I hope you’re all now thinking about Warwick Davis in that outfit. Sophie is, in my opinion, a bit of an asshole but she’s infinitely relatable. I read her thoughts about Matthew and simultaneously thought, ‘oh man, just cut the poor boy loose!’ and, ‘oh man, I’ve been in this exact situation.’ I think I might have just inadvertently called myself an asshole there, but oh well. The guilt of breaking up with someone and knowing they’ll be hurt by it, when they’ve done nothing in particular to warrant being dumped, is just terrible. Stringing someone along out of the sheer reluctance to look like a dickhead isn’t cool, but it’s an understandable predicament. So I was in from those first few paragraphs. Holliday writes well, and she writes characters well. There’s nothing more boring to me than blank slate characters, and none of Holliday’s were like that. I got a full sense of personality from each of them, even Matthew, who is such a boring person but still somehow great to read. My favourite thing about the story however, was the way the “wish gone bad” situation came about. I love zombies. LOVE them. Everyone who knows me knows that. I do enjoy the flesh-eating undead most of all, but I love them in all their forms, and it’s very rare these days that you get to enjoy a Haitian Voodoo story. It’s actually always been hard to “enjoy” films, for example, about voodoo zombies because when the sub-genre was popular, these movies were being churned out in past decades that were rife with ignorance and racism. Cue terrible racial stereotypes, a deep fear of the “other”, and insulting, demonising depictions of “foreign” people. I don’t mind telling you that I got to this aspect of the story and bristled a bit because of the worry that I was about to read something of that ilk. However, much to my relief, the character wasn’t presented this way (even unintentionally, which I’ve seen many a time from well-meaning writers who got it wrong). He’s more of a harbinger than a menace, and he does warn Sophie repeatedly to be careful about what she asks of him, which in effect rests the consequences squarely on her shoulders. From this point on, I wasn’t really surprised by anything in the story because of the type of story it is. That’s not a criticism – I feel the same way about Ari Aster’s Midsommer, which I love. You know exactly where that film is going but the point isn’t to be surprised at every turn, it’s just to enjoy every turn. This story was like that. It gets pretty creepy pretty quickly, and then you’re just along for the ride as things get progressively stressful and descend into darker and darker places, all the while with the feeling, ‘ah shit, Sophie’s f***ed.’ Or maybe I just read it that way because I’m eternally pessimistic and I always assume the protagonist is done for. I think I secretly hope for it most of the time. As mentioned at the start of this review, I might be an asshole. Maybe Sophie is done for…maybe it doesn’t go that way for her, you’ll have to read it yourself to find out. Nothing about the story let me down really, but I wish there’d been a bit more something. I feel like Holliday could have pushed it a bit further, made it a bit more visceral. You know… made her characters suffer even more. I’m not one for grisly descriptions usually but I was sat there reading away with a smile on my face, hoping for something that would make me sick. Or maybe it is stomach-churning but I’m a desensitized sicko so it went over my head. Overall, I enjoyed Mr. Sandman, and I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. A bit more originality in the concept would have pushed it higher but a 3 star rating for me means I really liked it and I recommend it. Up until now I’ve been unfamiliar with Holliday’s work but I’ll definitely be looking for more of her books to cosy up with from now on. Awkwardly trying to end this thing here so… Bye. A review by K. M. Edwards  SYNOPSIS Sophie is bored with her perfectly nice but deathly dull boyfriend Matthew. Sensing he’s about to lose her, Matthew takes her on a last-ditch attempt trip to the seaside, hoping to rekindle their dying flames. But things take a dark turn when Sophie visits Mr Sandman, a Haitian priest, who claims that he can change Matthew into the boyfriend that she wants. But does Sophie really know what she wants? Never has the phrase “be careful what you wish for” been more apt. Because Matthew does change...just not in the way that anyone could’ve predicted. BIO SJI (Susi))Holliday is the author of seven crime novels and numerous short stories. By day, she works as a statistician in the pharmaceutical industry, and by night she cooks up murderous plots and writes them down so that others can share her warped mind. Her bestselling books have been described as deliciously dark and twisted and “clever, cutting and addictive” and she loves to blend elements of psycho-logical thriller, mystery, horror and sci-fi. She also works as a writing coach, helping aspiring crime writers to get their words on the page. You can find her on twitter @sjiholliday and on her website www.sjiholliday.com.   Comments are closed.
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