 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to another book review. Today we are talking about Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelleo. I read this, well I listened to this book on Scribe. I did read some of it because they have the text version. Also if you'd like to check out Scribe get a free month free and my kids get a free month free. Also there's a link down there in the doobly-doo for you to check it out. You can't use it if you've already gotten a free month trial. But if you want to, and they didn't pay me to say this, not a sponsor, but if you want to try it out help out my kids. I appreciate it. They get unlimited books and audiobooks and so do you for a month. Try it. You don't have to keep it. You can get, I think you can cancel as soon as you start the trial so you don't have to worry about forgetting to cancel and then you still have the month free but I could be wrong about that. Make sure you check before you do it. Anyways, so this book is retelling, not really a retelling but a repurposing of the Pied Piper mythology. In fact that was my favorite part of the book. For those of you here for the TLDW too long didn't watch. I absolutely loved this book. It was very creepy. The characters were really good but we'll get into that more. But if you wanted the TLDW there you have it. I loved it and I suggest you read it. So the plot here is, I want to say this but I don't want you thinking that I think Pelleo ripped anybody off. It is this book is very John Connolly like the Charlie Parker's supernatural thrillers. It's a police procedural meets supernatural horror and I absolutely love that aspect of it. There is one thing I want to mention before I get on with the review and that is a weird phenomena. Maybe it's a phenomena. I tried to think the best about people but there are several reviews on Goodreads that I read once I finished this that talk about how much they didn't like the Wikipedia articles or the Wikipedia article-esque aspects of the book and I didn't notice any Wikipedia or Wikipedia-esque aspects. I don't know if they're talking about how much the author goes into detail about the surroundings or the place that the book is named after. It's called Children of Chicago. I expected Chicago history and lore and all that and as someone who's never been to Chicago I found all that stuff fascinating. But anyways it's just it's weird that so many reviewers mentioned Wikipedia and I didn't I didn't get even a sense of that throughout the book unless unless they were Wikipedia articles in there that I didn't catch because I was listening to the audiobook. If there are I'm sorry I missed it but I don't remember anything like from Wikipedia this date or whatever. I didn't notice any of that and the history of the town is no different than like John Connolly going into great detail about the places where he sets his books. So I had no problem with it because I'm a big John Connolly fan. So this this book revolves around a detective named Lauren who's looking into a murder case and there are okay let's go through I think the easiest way because I don't want to spoil anything for you guys. Let's go through my my three things I look for in every in every book whether it be horror or anything characters pacing and dread characters amazing in fact the best part of the book I feel other than the history in the lore so I guess second second part second my second favorite part is the main character of Lauren and how the book ends I'm not going to spoil it for you but I yeah another thing I'll say before I get on to the pacing and the dread is there's with this but there's there's a lot of very very subtle subtle creepy things that I enjoyed and I don't think that has to do with the pacing or the dread even even the dread we'll talk about that more in a second why I say that but there are so many there's one scene in here in particular that happens that I'm going to say it's Moe and it's in a restroom it stands out as probably one of the one of the creepiest scenes I've come across in a long time I would put it up there with Marisha Pacelle's night film and the scene on the bridge in that book anyways so let's go on to pacing I didn't feel this book lagged whatsoever in fact the author's descriptions of the city all that so it's very very well written that's why that's another reason why I'm sitting here going why are they mentioning Wikipedia articles because there's more places to get you know history than Wikipedia but anyways the authors have been doing this since the beginning of since the beginning of writing period or storytelling so I don't understand that but the with with the pacing it really moves along even during the sections where the author is telling us about this the city the history of the city the terrible and good things the culture the art all that stuff I felt that it was engaging I had a lot of fun reading it now I did read one article that mentioned that the author might have got something wrong I can't speak to that I've never been to Chicago I don't know anything about Chicago but in the book which is a fiction book I I believed what the author was selling that made me gullible gullible or naive I don't know but I'm not gonna judge a city based on a fiction book if that makes sense but the book blew right along I had a lot of fun with it I can't think of a single time when I wanted to put it down the I think I read it the whole book in three settings sitting or not really sitting because I listen to audiobooks when I walk and then during my cool-down time either that or when I exercise so but it was a total of three times I listened to it and I never wanted to stop listening to it I just had other things to do and then when I couldn't listen to it I would read the text version which is very miniscule I maybe read three maybe three chapters in the text version and that was just because I like to judge the the the text against the the actual audiobook and I didn't find any discrepancies like sometimes you'll find errors in the in the text that you can't of course here in the audiobook I didn't find any of that stuff but I didn't read the whole physically read the entire book I listened to the entire book next up is the dread the dread here is off the charts especially when you realize that this is a supernatural thriller I asked before I even read this I asked people on Twitter is like is this book horror or is this just a police procedural because the I feel the description was kind of vague on that like it could be one thing it could be another which which I appreciate because I don't normally read descriptions but I heard it being called a police procedural and I'm not too into that I like the Charlie Parker series because it's about a private investigator and not you know just the the day-to-day routine and all the I'm not a big fan like CSI and that kind of thing I was worried that's what it was that's why it took me so long to read I'm happy to say it was it was it was nothing like that it was much more fun than just reading a by-wrote you know descriptions of like you know the detective stuff there's a lot of character work here but the dread keeps mounting and keeps mounting and keeps mounting it just keeps going man until the final end and I was that that ending that bravo and more than a golf clap I want to full on applaud it I I love books that end this way and again I will state the scene with Mo in the restroom one of the scariest scenes I have had the pleasure to read slash listen to whatever so bravo to the author and her amazing debut I am super excited for anything that she writes from here on out but have you read Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelleo if you have then please let me know down there in the doobly-doo whether or not you loved it you hated it you felt meh about it if you felt any of those things describe how you felt in detail or why you felt those things so that we can have a discussion but until next time I have any you've been you this has been another book review I'll talk to you guys later