Soze Says

If you appreciate weird and are a fan of Jeff Strand, then you're going to love Facial. If you're one or the other, then you'll probably like this just fine. If you're neither, then try a different Jeff Strand book, because this one - short and eminently readable as it is - is not the place to start with this very talented author.

Dealing with two brothers who each come into contact with a face growing out of the basement floor of one of their homes, Facial starts with Strand's trademark midnight black humour and only gets darker as the novella progresses. That's really all that can be said without spoiling details, other than noting this one is probably not as laugh out loud funny as most of his other works I've read, but it nevertheless produced a couple of wry chuckles.

Though I had my issues with this one, most were addressed before I swiped onto the last page. With one notable exception. Strand writes from the POV of a host of characters throughout the book, and pretty much all of the voices sounded the same. As such, were it not for the handy name beneath the chapter number, I think I would have struggled with who had taken over the narrative at times.

That gripe aside, Facial is fun and weird in a way that justifies the use of bold. It probably even falls into the realm of bizarro, and if so, this would be one of the few examples of that genre that I enjoyed.

4 Bad Ideas That Seemed Good at the Time for Facial.

The preceding was based on an eARC received from Netgalley courtesy of DarkFuse Publications.