How scary is this book, you ask? Well, I’m closing in on my thirties and I had to sleep with the lights on after finishing Empty Smiles.
This is the fourth and final instalment in Katherine Arden’s Small Spaces series. Three months after Ollie has made a daring deal with the smiling man to keep her loved ones safe—in exchange for leaving with the smiling man—her friends Coco, Brian and Phil are desperately waiting for their chance to save Ollie from his clutches. When a clue finally surfaces, Coco, Brian and Phil find themselves racing against the clock as they try to locate Ollie at the traveling carnival before everyone they love will suffer at the hands of the smiling man. The friends have until sunrise to finally stop the smiling man once and for all.
Listen, I’ve never quite understood why people are afraid of clowns but after reading this? I do. I so get it. Applegate pulls no punches in this final installment and instead delivers a spooky, atmospheric summer horror journey that is destined to creep you out…and make you hate clowns, like, a lot.
Empty Smiles may just be my favourite in this series and a huge part of that can be attributed to the smiling man. Yes, you read that right. Thanks to Ollie’s proximity to and interactions with the smiling man, we finally get a glimpse behind the scenes and learn more about what makes the smiling man who he is—and questions we’ve been asking since the very first book are finally addressed, even if the answers you find maybe won’t be what you want to hear. On top of that, this installment just delivers such a fast pace that you can’t really put it down. Jumping back and forth between scenes where Ollie is feeling anxious to be rescued—and is heavily manipulated by the smiling man to think her friends have stopped caring about her—and then moving on to scenes where Coco, Brian and Phil are desperate for the smiling man to hold up his end of the bargain they struck and give them the chance to save Ollie who they miss fiercely just heightened the stakes even more. There are also other circumstances that further drive the plot (for example the parents getting really suspicious about what’s going on with their children) that make this story so compelling.
While I won’t say anything major for spoiler’s sake, I do want to point out that if you’re a fan of the scary carnival trope, then this book will be your kryptonite. Arden takes on the classic trope and puts enough spins on it that you won’t ever quite know what—or who—will be a safe space. And while I would have wished for a bit more of a wrap-up concerning the ending, I think fans of this series will be more than satisfied with this compelling finale and yet have a hard time saying goodbye to these wholesome characters.
Delivering an atmospheric, scary carnival horror with nail-biting twists and turns, Empty Smiles is a spooky, sinister and satisfying conclusion to the beloved Small Spaces series. Readers looking for answers, an epic showdown and intense scenes that are sure to induce goosebumps will get their money’s worth!
Empty Smiles is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of August 9th 2022.
Will you be picking Empty Smiles? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
It’s been three months since Ollie made a daring deal with the smiling man to save those she loved, and then vanished without a trace. The smiling man promised Coco, Brian and Phil, that they’d have a chance to save her, but as time goes by, they begin to worry that the smiling man has lied to them and Ollie is gone forever. But finally, a clue surfaces. A boy who went missing at a nearby traveling carnival appears at the town swimming hole, terrified and rambling. He tells anyone who’ll listen about the mysterious man who took him. How the man agreed to let him go on one condition: that he deliver a message. Play if you dare.
Game on! The smiling man has finally made his move. Now it’s Coco, Brian, and Phil’s turn to make theirs. And they know just where to start. The traveling carnival is coming to Evansburg.
Meanwhile, Ollie is trapped in the world behind the mist, learning the horrifying secrets of the smiling man’s carnival, trying everything to help her friends find her. Brian, Coco and Phil will risk everything to rescue Ollie—but they all soon realize this game is much more dangerous than the ones before. This time the smiling man is playing for keeps.
The summer nights are short, and Ollie, Coco, Brian, and Phil have only until sunrise to beat him once and for all—or it’s game over for everyone.
