Inspection by Josh Malerman – Review

Published: March 19, 2019

Publisher: Del Rey Books

Series: Standalone

Genre: Fiction, Thriller

Pages: 400 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 2.5/5.0

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

J is a student at a school deep in a forest far away from the rest of the world.

J is one of only twenty-six students, all of whom think of the school’s enigmatic founder as their father. J’s peers are the only family he has ever had. The students are being trained to be prodigies of art, science, and athletics, and their life at the school is all they know—and all they are allowed to know.

But J suspects that there is something out there, beyond the pines, that the founder does not want him to see, and he’s beginning to ask questions. What is the real purpose of this place? Why can the students never leave? And what secrets is their father hiding from them?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest, in a school very much like J’s, a girl named K is asking the same questions. J has never seen a girl, and K has never seen a boy. As K and J work to investigate the secrets of their two strange schools, they come to discover something even more mysterious: each other.

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I was really looking forward to this book based on the synopsis and I hadn’t read any of Josh Malerman’s previous books. It was going to be a whole new experience and well, it really was. It wasn’t entirely great either.

The premise of the book is that there are these two giant, Barad-dûr like towers in the middle of the Michigan woods. I think it was Michigan anyways – does it really matter? One is composed entire of males and one of females, with twenty-six children in each, raised to believe the opposite sex didn’t exist. They’re down a few kids in each because some unfortunate child will catch a glimpse of someone they shouldn’t, but no big deal right? It’s not totally murder or anything.

Yes, actually it is murder and it’s kinda messed up because all the other kids fear being sent to the Corner, where their brothers or sisters were sent and never returned from. And they’re basically being raised by ex-cons because they needed the large sums of money offered by the orchestrators of this whole twisted experiment. D.A.D and M.O.M each ruling their own separate little domains, trying to create the ultimate genius, undistracted by the appeals of the opposite sex.

SPOILER – IT DIDN’T REALLY WORK OUT. That’s all that’s to be said really. I felt sorry for the kids and it was fun to watch the experiment unravel around M.O.M and D.A.D’s ears.

I was glad when I finished this book and it wasn’t an entirely unexpected ending. I almost DNF’d this until I got to the girl’s chapters and the story kind of picked up pace, making things more bearable. I probably won’t pick up any Malerman books in the future unless I see some truly excellent reviews pop up from trusted sources.