BOOK REVIEW: THE OCTOBER BOYS by Adam Millard

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found ice cream men creepy. That could be the fault of my own mother who never let me run outdoors with the other neighborhood kids to chase down the ice cream truck. I assumed in her mind mind, any adult luring children with tinkly music and the promise of treats screamed “Stranger Danger”! So I inherited the suspicion of all ice cream men. And you better believe reading Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes made that unease way worse. So naturally a creepy story about a soul-hungry ice cream man on the hunt for innocent children on Halloween appealed to me right away!

What’s THE OCTOBER BOYS about? Four boys go trick-or-treating on Halloween night in 1988, unaware of a suspicious ice cream truck stalking close behind. When one of the boys is taken by the Ice Cream Man, the others are shaken and haunted by fear and guilt into their adulthood. Fast forward to 2016, the Ice Cream Man and his eerie truck are back, hungry for the souls of children and thirsty for revenge on the boys who got away.

In spite of some folks writing this story off —possibly due to its similarities to a well known story of an evil clown and a lovable gang of losers—I really did like this book! It’s told from multiple perspectives, and has that alternating timeline between past and present that I also enjoyed in Stephen King’s IT—I’m a sucker for that particular story structure so my opinion is biased. Learning about the evil origins of the Ice Cream Man and following our protagonist Tom Craven as he wrestles with his own childhood trauma of the night his friend disappeared was, in my opinion, equally engaging. My only real complaint was having an ending that was a bit abrupt and anti-climactic. Honestly, I think if Millard had given this book another 200 pages of story/ character development it would be golden!

If you’re looking for one more spooky read this Fall and think this might be right up your alley, please give it a go!

(3/5⭐)

                                                                           xo Nina