I really, really didn't like this book, even though I am a fan of David Mitchell. Was this an early book that was rejected, and then retrieved from the reject pile after he became successful? Or some sort of contractual obligation book? I don't know, but I do know that it's supernatural-themed (which I don't like), and horror (which I like even less), and formulaic (the same sort of thing, varying slightly, happens in each chapter - which is always set on the last Saturday of October at nine-year intervals.
The explanation towards the end of what has been happening felt forced and implausible - not only the explanation itself but the mechanism by which the reader was getting it. And there's lots of deception, in which both the victim characters, and the reader, is misled about what's going on - do I like this even less because it feels so much like what's going on in the real world, with confusing misinformation and retraction about everything - the virus, Brexit, and so on? Hard to know, but I do know that I really didn't like it.
David Mitchell is a good writer, and manages to make the occult-codswallop on which the plot hangs feel almost plausible. Some of the place descriptions are particular good, and did rather remind me of the feeling of dreams, but that sort of makes it worse. I didn't want to read this in bed for fear it would turn up in my dreams, which are bad enough as it is.
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