Not Daring To Trust Anyone In The Creeper Man By Dawn Kurtagich

*All reviews I write are spoiler free*

How happy I am to finally be writing this review!

Ever since reading The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich, I’ve been obsessed. I talk about it all the time. If you have me on Twitter, you’ve probably seen.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when Dawn offered to send me an ARC to review of her new book, The Creeper Man! 😀

~~Seriously, I ran downstairs and started jumping up and down practically screaming at my dad in incoherent nonsense.~~

So let’s talk about The Creeper Man!

(though maybe you don’t want to…talking about him can summon terrible things…DUN DUN DUNNNNN)

Title: The Creeper Man (UK) / And The Trees Crept In (US)

Author: Dawn Kurtagich

Publisher: Indigo/Orion (this edition)

Genre: Young Adult, Horror, Mystery

Series Status: Standalone

Number of Pages: 371

Release date: July 14th 2016 (UK) / September 6th 2016 (US)

(From back cover, view another version on Goodreads)

There’s a man in the trees, a man with no eyes,

but still he watches, that’s the surprise.

Stay away from the woods, it couldn’t be clearer,

but the trees are creeping nearer and nearer…

Beware the creeper man.

*I received an ARC of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review*

yes yeS YEs yEs YES YES YES!

This is exactly what I ~~wanted~~ needed!

I had high expectations – pretty obvious from how much I rave about The Dead House – and it did not. miss. a. single. one of them.

I’m just going to say this right now: if you don’t like horror, don’t like creepy stories, don’t like scary details…you might not like this book.

I’ve not read many horror books in my life, but I can tell this is exactly the sort of thing I want when reading horror. It was creepy, I had the spine-tingling feeling, I was staring wide-eyed at the page, taking in all the horrifying events. And I loved it.

It’s very obvious this is a creepy book. If the title wasn’t enough to warn you, the dark atmosphere that’s present right from the start sure will. But it’s much more than just a horror-fest of “how scared can you be?” OH SO MUCH MORE. There’s this whole mystery surrounding the story, a backstory that needs to be found out. As if the confusion of the present day story wasn’t enough. To figure out what’s going on, you need the truth of the past…

But what’s the truth? Who knows? There’s so many different versions. You don’t know whether the events happening are the truth or not, but you NEED to find out.

I didn’t trust anyone in this book. Not one single character. I didn’t dare. I didn’t know who to believe. At times, I felt like I was losing my mind along with Silla (the main character). It’s just so easy to get caught in this book, to feel the agitation, the constant state of awareness. I kept tucking myself further into my bed, hoping to cover every part of me while reading as if that would make it any less creepy.

And let me tell you, there were SO many twists in this book. I couldn’t predict what was going to happen at all. Every time I tried, the story would take on a completely different direction, leaving me clinging to the page scared to let go in case I lost my grip altogether. Countless times did I start slightly, staring wide-eyed while frantically turning the pages because WHERE THE HELL DID THAT TWIST COME FROM? Seriously, the story in the beginning of this book is completely different to the one at the end. Oh. My. Goodness.

I haven’t even gotten to the best bit. Well, the best bit in my opinion, at least.

THE FORMATTING.

Every chapter starts with a new short poem/rhyme. The spacing and text size changes to suit how Silla’s thinking. Might not sound like much, but when the text is spaced just right, it can make you read it differently. It can make you read at top speed to echo her rapid fire overthinking. It can make you feel like you’re in her mind – which you really need with a good horror. There would be messy scrawlings, obviously written by a small child. There were even broken book entries – a whole paragraph of writing, with certain words written in bold. Well, those bold words would form another sentence entirely, hidden in the writing.

“Nightmares. There are too many of them these days. I have them almost every night. Most people have nightmares about their past, but not me. I have them about my present. He reaches me. He takes a hold of me and pulls me closer. His head on my shoulder. He wants me.”

I mean, there was even different fonts in the text for when it’s written from a different point of view. Little details like that just get me so on board with the story.

Since I’ve rambled on about this book for a while already, I’ll say one final thing. I did not expect this book to bring out as many emotions as it did. I mean, towards the end I was nearly crying… in sadness. I’m not a wimp that nearly cried because it’s too scary. Oh no no. The ending just surprised me that much, and while it’s not an especially sad moment for readers – I know most people won’t well up like I did – I just felt like we’d been through so much during this story, and the emotions needed a way out. But seriously, HOW THE HELL CAN A HORROR NEARLY MAKE ME CRY OF SADNESS? WHAT?!

This was one (literal) hell of a rollercoaster. It made my spine chill, it made me wary of everything, it made my eyes expand unbelievably wide while reading. And I couldn’t get enough of it. I don’t have one bad word to say. It was everything I’d hoped it’d be.

Rated 5/5 stars!

Order from Amazon!

[Available in Paperback and Kindle edition] – on preorder until release!

Share your thoughts!

Have you read this book? What did you think?

If you haven’t read this book, is it on your to-read list?

Will you be getting the UK or US version?

Maybe you’ve read Dawn Kurtagich’s other book, The Dead House? What did you think? (It’s one of my favourite books, I’d love to find more people who’ve read it!)

Let me know in the comments!