This book scared the crap out of me. It has the combined terrifying issues of children, murder, mysterious institutions, and other creepy shit.
This horror story follows a boy named Billy who has an imaginary friend named Delfy. At first, Delfy seems like a harmless, developmentally approrpriate figment of a young boy’s imagination; but Delfy soon evolves into something malevolent.
Something uncany about this book is that it takes place in the future, in a world where a pandemic has swept through the population. Meanwhile, this book was written in early 2020 when the world looked “normal’ as far asmost people were concerned. To read about a post-pandemic future was reallly eerie, and I wonder what feelings the author had as they watched the pandemic rip through the world.
Billy is the middle of three children – his mother lives with her boyfriend and the father of her third child, Beth. Her older daughter, Nina, is Billy’s full sister, and the children spend most of their time with their mother. WHen Billy starts to exhibit concerning behaviors, the family isn’t sure what to do.
At one point, Billy does somehting that can’t be written off as harmless play with an imaginary friend, and he has to go into an institution. At the same time, Rachel and her boyrfiend Al also have to go into an institution of sorts, in a very bleak but believable version of the future where people are offered housing and food to live and work in a company complex. So… no real money. Just working for room and board and the promise of employment.
THis book has space travel, consipracy theories, pandemics, espionage, and soemthign that’s not quite distopia, but is very close. And i loved every second of it. Would highly recommend
