Out of Body by Jeffrey Ford – Review

Published: May 26, 2020

Publisher Tor.com

Series: Stand alone

Genre: Fantasy, Horror

Pages: 176 (Paperback)

My Rating: 3.5/5.0

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

Synopsis:

Out of Body is a dark fantasy thriller from multi-award-winning author Jeffrey Ford.

A small-town librarian witnesses a murder at his local deli, and what had been routine sleep paralysis begins to transform into something far more disturbing. The trauma of holding a dying girl in his arms drives him out of his own body. The town he knows so well is suddenly revealed to him from a whole new perspective. Secrets are everywhere and demons fester behind closed doors.

Worst of all, he discovers a serial killer who has been preying on the area for over a century, one capable of traveling with him through his dreams.

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I’m always so conflicted when it comes down to rating a novella. On the one hand, they’re almost always interesting stories and on the other… well, I am typically left wanting a little more. Out of Body managed to sort of balance out for me. It was a well written, contained story and while I’m always down for more detail, it had enough to satisfy my curiosity.

It starts out just as the synopsis describes – Owen (the town librarian) is on his way to work when he witnesses a murder and takes a nasty knock to the head. Obviously he’s quite disturbed by this and when he falls asleep that night he has an out of body experience. This recurs for some time and he sees other dreamwalkers and well, I’ll stop there. I shall refrain from giving you too much detail about the nitty-gritty of the plot because honestly it was so surprising I would hate to ruin that for you guys. Lets just say that dreamwalking is a little more perilous than our loner librarian would have guessed and he gets involved in something quite dangerous.

This was a good, quick read that kept me guessing and was a little creepy. I always feel like stand alone novellas are a quick snapshot into a really cool world. The surprising/dangerous part of the book (if you read it you know what I’m saying) sort of came out of nowhere and threw me for a loop. It wasn’t bad, but it was jarring and I had to pause and think for a second! Overall, not bad!