Honestly this is a 3.5 star read for me, but since I don’t like to do half stars, I rounded up to 4. I think that parts of this horror novel works, but I wish we had more explanation for the Cunning Man, Mother, etc. I don’t want an info dump, but some parts of the book felt unfinished and when we get to the end I thought, well heck so we don’t get any explanations? Also after a while, the book just jumped around to way too many people. I fortunately kept track of everyone [Golden does a great job of developing so many characters] but I really wish that maybe we had stayed on just one or two people, max three, and not shifted every chapter to someone else.
“All Hallows” follows two families and several other characters that are about to celebrate Halloween Night in Coventry, Massachusetts in 1984 [The Barbosa’s and the Sweeney’s]. One of the families, the Barbosa’s are about to celebrate their last Halloween at their home. Tony [the father] has dealt with losing his job, though he has a new one, it’s not enough to save him from selling their family home and moving somewhere else. Tony loves Halloween and his yearly tradition of decorating the woods behind their homes and having a huge scare-fest with the neighbors. This year is definitely going to be different since something dark is in the woods and is waiting for the children.
As I said above, there are a lot of characters in this one. We follow Tony, his wife Alice, his daughter Chloe, and his son Rick. We follow Barb, her daughter Julie, her sons Brian and Charlie, and her husband Donnie. On top of that we follow Vanessa, her best friend Steve, Rick’s best friend Billie, and two creepy neighbors. I know I am probably forgetting someone, but that’s the ones that I can recall.
I think that the book had a little too much going on family drama wise when you see the mess the two families are (because of the parents) and the pain it’s causing the kids. On top of that there is the whole Cunning Man and the mysterious kids that start to pop up. I honestly think my favorite parts of the book were with Rick and Billie. Maybe because Billie dressed up as Storm. I thought the adult parts were a bit tedious after a while. I swear no one on that street that they all lived, outside of one family had happy parents.
I did like that Golden does not let you get too comfortable with thinking everyone is going to get out of this alive because you have some crazy deaths a good start into the book. I think at one point I was like, is everyone going to make it? Cause it doesn’t seem like it.
The flow was up and down due to the constant character shifts. I also really wish we had gotten more insight into everything and even why and how the Cunning Man showed up where he did again, backstory to him and a few characters and places we hear about. We just shifted from that way too fast.
The setting of 1984 works for this one and I could picture the teens, parents, the woods, everything perfectly.
The ending was sad, but it felt a little too rushed in some aspects, I wish we had some more scenes with people, maybe six months later, heck even next Halloween.
I read this for Halloween Bingo 2025, “Halloween square.”