I picked this up at random at the bookstore as I meandered around the horror section, trying to find something to read that hit the right note. I was most drawn by the size of the edition and the nice touches they did — I’m a sucker for French flaps — and I was happy to find a mass market paperback sized book that can fit nicely in my backpack, versus the way most paperbacks are done in trade size nowadays, which makes them heavy. Putting that rant aside (I feel my encroaching age when I start going on about how back in my day the paperbacks were sized right!!), this fit all of my material culture demands and then I liked the story inside as well! How to Survive Camping: The Man With No Shadow started as posts on the r/nosleep subreddit, which I don’t really frequent so I’d missed this. However, I’ve read stuff off the subreddit before so was familiar with the general tone that the authors tend to have. I thought this had a fresh and unique tone and could understand why it had made the leap to traditional publishing, as it definitely has broad appeal.
Kate is the owner of the Goat Valley Campground, which has been in her family for generations. That fact makes it old land, which draws supernatural beings and monsters to it. Kate’s family has a deal with the nearby town to try to keep the beings on the campground and out of the town, and to take care of any monsters that escape or cause trouble. She has a list of rules that her campers need to follow to keep from being killed or harmed, even if they don’t believe in the supernatural, and it’s been working pretty decently until things start going wrong and Kate starts realizing that she’s in for a bad year. I liked the way that everything was woven together in a nice balance between smaller vignettes and the overall narrative. Kate’s arc around starting to face her anger and grief, and of her beginning to come more into her own and take command of the situation, was well done. The use of folklore and the creation of new monsters was originally portrayed and I find that to be rare or difficult to find in the genre.
Kate is a prickly character who has been through a lot, but Quinn did a great job at making us care for her and explaining her thought process. I appreciated that Kate takes the time to explain that this level of catastrophe is unusual, because I did find it hard to believe that anyone would stay at this campground, but I guess if you’re usually fine, people would take the chance? The gap between those who do and don’t believe here made me also have questions about the overall world of the story — are there areas where this stuff never happens? How are cities dealt with? But these are more my desire for worldbuilding. Overall, this was very enjoyable and a fun read, with enough tension that I have to keep flipping forward to make sure I could handle what would happen. It turns out that there at least two more books coming, and I’ll definitely pick them up in April and September.
Recommended — warnings for lots of bloody/gory deaths, harm to children and animals, grief, trauma
