Clown in a Cornfield reads like a fun slasher movie with heart. I was reminded of the feelings I had while watching the movie Terrifier. To be clear, I'm saying that gore was very much a big part of this story, but not the focus.

So many of the characters are very likeable and we are treated to background stories on quite a few of them, which I found very rewarding. The annoyance I felt with some of the high school characters goes to show that Adam Cesare knows how to capture the arrogance and flippancy of popular kids in their prime. I loved our main character, Quinn, because I could relate to her so much: her attitude towards the other kids, and how trying to fit in can come with a cost. In this case, the cost was a lot higher than usual.

I absolutely love that the small town of Kettle Springs is the setting. I felt like I could hear the corn swaying in the wind and smell the diner food that Quinn and her father, Glenn, partook in. The writing is very well composed in this way and I was bewitched by it. Cesare is also very good at subtle misdirection that puts you on edge and keeps you there, waiting for things to happen that may never come.

I noted a few spots where I found the imagery particularly tantalizing:

"She picked up her hand, stared at her palm in the moonlight, her lifeline cut by a sliver of golden hay. She straightened to her knees and plucked another blade out of the air."

"If a farmer has fungus or beetles or any other scourge, it spreads if you don't take steps to eliminate it. Cut and cull. Root out the problem. Burn the whole harvest if you have to, lose the crop to save the land. Then let the field lie fallow for a couple seasons."

"Madness. Hate. Insecurity. Tradition. The American Dream."

"The fact that history bent toward progress, no matter how hard the assholes tried pushing back."

This story is saturated with undercurrents pertaining to the current political climate, although they are not at all in-your-face. You can feel that what has been happening in the world, particularly the US, is marking the words in these pages. These markings serve as more of a warning for our future though, and there are strong nuances of hope that persist through the horror. And just as we all know that hope can prevail, so too can evil, and Adam Cesare does not let us forget that by the epilogue.

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Written by Samantha

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