Review: Cunning Folk
/4 stars. I recently heard some stuff on Tik Tok about the page 100 rule - that if you're unsure about whether or not to buy a book, open it up to sample page 100 instead of page 1. It's a good technique because page 1 has been picked over to death in drafts, proposals, and numerous iterations of manuscripts by numerous individuals on the publishing team and likely isn't a good representation of what the writing is actually like. If you're considering reading Cunning Folk, read anything past page 1 - past the first quarter of the book, maybe. As other reviews have noted, Adam Nevill starts things off with pages of overly metaphorical prose weighed down by flowery OTT descriptions. But definitely... stick with it, lol. This is one of the craziest horror books I've ever read.
When Tom, Fiona and their daughter Gracey buy a fixer upper in the country, they know it'll be a challenge - financially, emotionally, physically - but they are determined to give their daughter a spacious and quiet home in a safe community. Almost immediately, though, they are met with obstacles they did not expect: rude, weird neighbors, problems with the garden, Gracey frightened by her wanderings in the woods. Things escalate, unravel and spiral out of control until Tom is desperate, etc. etc. etc.
Cunning Folk could've ended after the renovations start to go bad and I'd be satisfied. There's nothing scarier to me than being cash-strapped with an endless amount of insurmountable home repairs on my to-do list. Nevill really leans into this too - oh, as if spooky neighbors aren't enough? Let's throw crippling project anxiety and debt into the mix. It's the old Amityville Horror trick - real horror is economic. Luckily, or not so luckily for the faint of heart, he balances all this out with genuinely creepy supernatural/folk horror elements... rituals, curses, witchcraft, a clearing in the woods, ancient magic, and a new form of scary to me: competitive garden terror. HGTV landscaping gone horribly, horribly wrong.
I docked a star because you know why, but this is a great, edge-of-your-seat, can't-look-away, immersive book. It's my first Adam Nevill and I'm eager to check out more. It's fascinating that it started out as a screenplay, because so much is communicated through the characters' inner turmoil and thoughts. Anyway, yeah, if you can get past the extreme OTT language in the beginning, this has potential to be a real classic.
Cunning Folk on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads