I love this book to pieces, to the point of ~~making~~, uh, encouraging my book club to read it with me, as intended, one chapter a day through the whole October. It’s a delight. Sure, a bit cutesy in places, and way too genre-aware to be taken too seriously, but that’s all in good fun and intentional.
Snuff is one of my favourite protagonists ever, and he has such a strong voice. Actually, the second time I read this book, I read it out loud to my partner, and realised even more how strong the voices of Snuff and all the other animal companions are. Reading the book like that, a chapter a day, also makes you appreciate the pacing a lot – slow to start, then heating up, and letting you in on the actual plot bit by bit.
The ending is, of course, predictable, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable for me. Just lovely October vibes all around.
Plot summary
Beware: full spoilers! Also probably incomplete and possibly incomprehensible.
Every time that there’s a new moon on Halloween, the Openers and Closers spend the October beforehand preparing for their show-down (letting the elder gods into the world or not). Snuff and Jack have been doing this for ages. They are closers, obviously, because the losing side always dies. Snuff becomes friends with the cat Greymalk, and Jack with her companion Jill. The two are Openers, but by virtue of a small helpful rat, it all shakes out well in the end, and we get a delightful shaggy dog story out of it, as you’d expect.
