REVIEW: Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky

Imaginary Friend is not the kind of novel you’d expect Stephen Chbosky to write. It’s certainly miles away from his beloved coming-of-age novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, where he tapped into the difficulties of navigating love and friendship as a teen struggling with mental illness. Instead, this novel is much closer in theme and genre to one written by Stephen King – and is every bit as compelling.

Imaginary Friend follows a young boy named Christopher and his mother, a tiny struggling family seeking a new start in Mill Grove, Pennsylvania. While they struggle financially, all seems well until Christopher makes a new “friend” – and then disappears for six days. His return brings relief to his mother Kate but casts a shadow of evil over the rest of the town. Bodies are unearthed, the past comes back for a haunting and murderous hysteria sweeps through the citizens of Mill Grove. Before long, the fate of the entire town comes to rest on the shoulders of a seven-year-old boy with a horrendous battle between good and evil waging in his head.

I’ll admit I’m not a regular reader of horror, but I do love Stephen Chbosky’s writing. I was one of those teens who read The Perks of Being a Wallflower and adored it. I loved it for its characters, people who were all insecure and vulnerable but still smart and strong in all the ways that mattered. You should know, then, that Imaginary Friend retains that amazing depth of character. Chbosky uses the people of Mill Grove as brilliant vehicles of horror, showing their everyday grievances and hidden neuroses to have roots in much darker forces. In that sense, the horror in Imaginary Friend is multifaceted – supernatural but also entirely human, showing us what happens when we let our past traumas mingle with suspicion and fear.

This behemoth of a novel comes in at around 700 pages, but don’t be daunted by its length. You can fly through 100 pages in one sitting, and there are enough twists and turns to keep you on edge for the whole of the novel (there are also some genuine scares to be found here, so don’t read this when you’re home alone). What I loved most of all, however, is that Imaginary Friend shows us how the horror inside our hearts can be just as terrifying as anything conjured up inside our heads.

Read an extract here!

Imaginary Friend

by Stephen Chbosky

Imagine... Leaving your house in the middle of the night. Knowing your mother is doing her best, but she's just as scared as you.

Imagine... Starting a new school, making friends. Seeing how happy it makes your mother. Hearing a voice, calling out to you. Imagine... Following the signs, into the woods. Going missing for six days. Remembering nothing about what happened. Imagine... Something that will change everything... And having to save everyone you love.

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Olivia Fricot

Olivia Fricot (she/her) is Booktopia's Senior Content Producer and editor of the Booktopian blog. She has too many plants and not enough bookshelves, and you can usually find her reading, baking, or talking to said plants. She is pro-Oxford comma.

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