OCTOBER ANIMALS by Nicholas Day – Review

I received this book for free from the Author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

October Animals by Nicholas Day
Published by Rooster Republic Press on April 30 2023
Genres: Adult, Coming of age, Horror
Pages: 90
Format: Finished hardcover
Source: Author
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The nitty-gritty: An atmospheric setting and the promise of an intriguing story couldn’t make up for the scattered plot and over-the-top prose.

October Animals is a short novella (or perhaps even a novelette) that I really wanted to love, but unfortunately, it didn’t work that well for me. The story is rather convoluted, and I finished the book wondering if I had missed something. Other reviewers on Goodreads seem to love it, though, so perhaps I’m just not the right audience.

First, a brief story recap, and then I’ll give you my thoughts. The story takes place in the town of October, Illinois and revolves around four high school friends. Lizzie Bat is struggling with the loss of her father, but when she discovers a copy of his memoir up in the attic, she’s hoping to learn more about what happened to him. Her mother, though, wants nothing to do with old memories, and so she destroys all her father’s possessions, including his book.

Lizzie has had enough of her mother and October, and so she convinces her friends—Owl, Kat and Spider—to help her rob the local Halloween store, Trick R Treat, so she’ll have money to leave town. But first they have to get past Lawrence Ragsdale, a local boy who works there, and who just might be a vampire.

I want to start with some elements I enjoyed. First, I immediately got Ray Bradbury vibes from the story. There’s a whimsical, nostalgic feel which reminded me of Something Wicked This Way Comes or The Halloween Tree, especially since this story takes place in a town called October. Some of the scenes are extremely eerie, and Day sets up an interesting mystery that deals with Lizzie’s dad and his memoir. Excerpts from this book are scattered throughout and add a sense of intrigue to the story.

Unfortunately, though, I struggled with just about everything else in this book. The writing style was not to my taste at all. The prose is overly flowery, almost to the point where individual sentences don’t make any sense:

“Risk existed in the collapsing space between lips just before a kiss and the banks of the Mischief River were a cemetery to all that the currents no longer wanted.”

There’s also a lot of repetition, certain phrases repeated over and over, and while I understand this was probably a stylistic choice made by the author, for me it simply muddied the waters of the plot and pulled me out of the story. It also made this feel like a children’s book, where repetition is common, and based on some of the things the characters do in this story, this is definitely not a book for children. 

I found the plot to be confusing as well. Day sets up an intriguing scenario in the beginning: a girl who is trying to leave her past behind decides to rob a local store in order to escape. But that never actually happens. Instead, Lizzie asks her three friends to “…steal something for me. Something only you could steal, but something you’d never dream of taking.” This weird tangent didn’t make sense, and the plot never really went anywhere.

October Animals almost feels like experimental fiction, meandering in odd directions. All its strange parts never really come together, and even the author’s notes at the end did little to explain what he was trying to do. Alas, I can’t really recommend this based on my experience, but readers looking for something very different might have better luck than I did.