A Review of Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

In this blog, I will be sharing Small Spaces by Katherine Arden. It is a thriller/horror fiction novel written in 2018. I read this book in the summer of 2020 with a group of students together and I thought the plot was both intriguing and fascinating. I hope you enjoy reading the review!

The story is about a group of students that goes missing on a school field trip to a farm. During their time at the farm, everything goes well until it is time to get onto the bus and leave. We get a first person perspective from the main characters, Olivia, Coco, and Brian, as they realize that the other students are being taken away by a mysterious being. They wander off the bus into a very heavy dense fog into the field realizing that the bus is no longer a safe space for them to stay in. The dense fog makes it incredibly difficult for them to see anything while wandering around the farm.

As they are scavenging to find their lost friends, they realize that Olivia’s watch which her mother left for her would blink different words to help them escape. Like when they come across scarecrows that move, they have to know when to hide so that they don’t get taken away by them. While trying to find an exit out of this creepy farm, they needed each other’s support and help. So I thought that it was intriguing to put main characters who are usually enemies during school as a team instead of characters that were already friends. Meaning they have to learn how to cooperate together in these harsh situations. 

We later learn that the man behind all this trouble is the “smiling man.” As the book series go on, he is always the one that is causing disasters and messing with the 3 friends. He would also use Olivia's grief of her passed mother as a threat/blackmail so that she would give in to the smiling man.

I think this book has a combination of mystery but also some spookiness throughout the whole book along with a little humor. After finishing Small Spaces, which is the first book in its series of 4, I read the 2nd one as well and it was just as amazing as the first. I think the author does a great job of creating an unpredictable storyline. Particularly when reading mystery novels, readers do not wish the plot to be easily foreseeable. Thus, I highly recommend reading this book if you enjoy reading genres like fantasy, horror, or mystery. 

Thanks for reading!

Helen