I picked this up for the same reason I picked up Horrorstör, I am a sucker for interestingly formatted books. And like Horrorstör the end product is very much style over substance. Like Horrorstör, this feels like someone has had a great concept and the story is a poorly executed afterthought. Unlike Horrorstör, which was at least a little entertaining in a popcorn movie sort of way, this is just boring. It's not scary, the mystery falls flat and the different epistolary methods are so nonsensical as to jar the reader out of the story.

To give some credit, there were some scenes that were very evocatively written. These are usually contained in Matt's descriptions in his journal. For example clearing up the dead birds and the way their window collisions had created an image. Few and far between, these were the only moments were I felt briefly engaged and interested in what was happening.

Reflecting on the story itself, it's just not gripping. The points where the tension should be building up isn't done especially well, and then when you get to the climax of the tension, there's nothing there - literally. Each time we're about to "get to the action" it is not recorded and all characters involved don't remember it. If told in a straight forward format, this might have actually been something interesting to play with, but in this format it just feels a bit lazy - like the author couldn't find a way to effectively portray those scenes using the format they had chosen so just didn't bother.

The format itself... rarely have I read a book so much in need of a framing device. Arguably there partially is one - when it was revealed at the end that potentially this was all fabricated, but by then I'd completely checked out. And again, it just kinda felt lazy - like the author wasn't even really committed to the bit. For example, the police interviews where we just had the relevant snippets rather than the whole interview and letting the reader suss out the relevant bits, the bizarreness of someone waking in the middle of the night and deciding to document their nightmares by dictaphone. The most bizarre of all were the dinner table conversations randomly recorded by his parents with no explanation as to why anyone would do that. And a doctor that bafflingly sends easily intercepted paper letters rather than via secure email?? Yes, arguably this can all be chalked up at the end to Matt having fabricated all of these things. But by the time that idea is introduced it's just become one more thing after another that jars the reader out of the story.

I have read many stories where I have checked out like this only to be absolutely astounded by the ending which turns it all on it's head. That was the reason I kept reading - in the hopes that would be the case here. But it wasn't. The big a-ha at the end of it possibly having all been fabricated was more of a damp squib, so underwhemingly presented that even if it had been a mind-blowing twist (it wasn't), it would still have fallen flat.

And again, so much could have been improved with a good framing device - perhaps this being a file someone has found, or a report, a cold case being dug up, etc. There are many ways this could have been framed where the different pieces of documentation could have been presented in a way that didn't make the reader think "why the hell is his mum recording them eating dinner?". And again, I will take the point that perhaps this was intentional, that it is all meant to seem strange because it all turned out to be fabricated, but it doesn't read as though that were the case. And if it was the intention, then the author just did a terrible job in their attempt to pull that off. This book just isn't that clever.

This whole book just felt like the author came up with what they thought was a clever idea and then put the bear minimum of effort into the execution. The horror in this story is the bad execution and the mystery is why the author even bothered. Beyond disappointing.