Pepper

I really want to like this, but

the child narrative effectively builds dread and tension and then wraps around to be absolutely unbearable. Child perspective and writing style aside there's bizarre dialogue throughout - especially with full grown adults calling Bela's parents Mommy and Daddo - and all of the adult women suffer from a serious case of being written by a man.

The other mommy falls just short of effective horror; the vagueness of her description works just as frequently against the scares as it does in service of them.

Overall this book has a lot of neat ideas but doesn't use them to the fullest.