Book Review: I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls by Ben Farthing

Johnny awakes. A puppet looms over his bed.

He recognizes the furry Grandpa was its puppeteer on the children’s television show R-City Street. But Grandpa went missing a year ago. He disappeared from this very apartment building, which was converted from the old R-City Street studio.

Desperate to see Grandpa again, Johnny follows the puppet inside the building’s walls, ever deeper into a puppet-infested labyrinth...

I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls is a horror tale from the “darkly inventive” purveyor of uncanny places and wondrous evils, Ben Farthing.

I’d had this book on my TBR pile for a while. I enjoy horror, but tend to take it in small doses since reading is part of my nightly routine. When I finally decided to pick it up during a reading slump, it felt like coming back to what I’ve always loved.

The story is straightforward: Johnny and his cousin are at their grandfather’s apartment to clean up after the old man has been declared deceased. The building used to be a TV studio where Johnny’s grandfather worked as a puppeteer on a show suspiciously similar to Sesame Street, but after a terrible disaster, the studio closed and the interior was renovated into apartments. The cousins spend the night there, and while Johnny is sleeping in his grandfather’s bedroom, a sinister puppet appears out of nowhere.

This evocative opening grabbed me immediately. I’ve never found puppets as unsettling as Ben Farthing does, but I agree there’s something unsettling about them. The fact that the puppets were inspired by famous characters we all know made the story more relatable, like meeting old friends who’d turned into dangerous enemies, which made everything even creepier.

The scenes where the cousins traverse the maze of narrow passages behind the walls were fascinating. The oppressive atmosphere was almost palpable. I also appreciated the vivid cognitive dissonance Johnny felt encountering characters from the show who had been important figures from his childhood visits to see his grandfather work.

The book felt unpretentious, yet I had such a great time with it that it immediately put me in a good mood. I’d recommend it to all fans of the genre.

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lomeraniel

My name is Elena. Since I was a little child I loved science fiction and fantasy, and I can’t resist a good novel. In 2015, while wait I started to listen to audiobooks and I discovered the pleasure in being able to read while doing my daily tasks, so there’s always an audiobook playing on my phone. If you see me with my Bluetooth headphones on, please be gentle, I get easily startled.

I live with my boyfriend, which I met during my six-year stay in Belgium, four cockatiels, eight lovebirds, and a hamster in Madrid, Spain; and I like to spend my free time knitting and sewing while listening to audiobooks.