Black Mouth

By: Ronald Malfi

Narrated by: Joe Hempel

Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

Perfect for fans of Stephen King's IT, a group of friends return to their hometown to confront a nightmare they first stumbled on as teenagers in this mesmerizing odyssey of terror.

An atmospheric, haunting thriller, full of memorable characters and sublime terror, from the author of Come with Me

For nearly two decades, Jamie Warren has been running from darkness. He's haunted by a traumatic childhood and the guilt at having disappeared from his disabled brother's life. But then a series of unusual events reunites him with his estranged brother and their childhood friends, and none of them can deny the sense of fate that has seemingly drawn them back together.

Nor can they deny the memories of that summer, so long ago—the strange magic taught to them by an even stranger man, and the terrible act that has followed them all into adulthood. In the light of new danger, they must confront their past by facing their futures, and hunting down a man who may very well be a monster.

©2022 Ronald Malfi (P)2022 Tantor

Likely my favorite Malfi of them all

Fantastic narration and a damn good storyline. Audible is making me lengthen my review so now I’m just rambling.

Excellent!

This book was phenomenal! Malfi is quickly becoming one of my top favorite authors. Dennis was one of my favorite characters. I just loved this story so much.

Power of Evil

Childhood memories can haunt us forever and abusers and the supernatural can have a negative impact on our future... this is such a story.

Good book.

Other than an aggressively large amount of swear words, this was a really good book. I enjoyed it.

Great Listen

This is one of those books I wish I had the time to actually sit and read. Great character substance and very vivid, I could vision what I was hearing.
Definitely has The outline of Stephen King's book IT where kids encounter supernatural forces and grow up to overcome it with additional twists.
I really appreciated how the author was able to bring in real life factors without politicizing it such as battling alcoholism, abusive families, discrimination and bigotry.
Joe hemple.... excellent job as usual, one of my favorite narrators.

Good writer following ITs outline.

I started this story before reading any of the reviews as I had a 2 for 1 credit and it was recommended. I'll start by saying that it's well written and the narrator is pretty good. It feels like the writer took an outline of Stephen King's IT and rewrote it using fewer characters and a weaker antagonist. It's so similar that it takes you out of the story. The writer can write. He has the ability to paint a word picture and turn a phrase. Unfortunately, whether intentional or not, the book has way too many similarities to King's already written book. That being said, I will try another of the author's books (because, as I said he CAN write) with fingers crossed that it doesn't follow a storyline someone else created.

Do you want to see a magic trick?

Then gather in and watch Malfi do what he does best, slay!!! This one is dark & intense, it'll make you question what is real and what may be quietly lurking in the shadows!

"Whatever you been running from, it's about to catch up to you. You get me, sis?"

Loved it

This story kept my interest from beginning to end! The characters were so well developed, i had a perfect visual of each of them as well as their surroundings. I would highly recommend!

Decent but derivative horror

This book was pretty solid, but I have to dock it a bit: the publisher's blurb compares it to Stephen King, and it's not lying. It's most similar to IT, but the whole thing is basically constructed from Stephen King tropes, from the whole structure of the story all the way down to the central character frequently missing about addiction and rehab. I enjoyed it overall, but I don't feel like I can rate it as highly as I would in a vacuum because it feels like it was largely constructed from bits and pieces of things I've read before. It's an enjoyable enough read, though, with that disclaimer out of the way.

It was ok, definitely not as good as IT

The story was strong but the ending wasn’t. A review said if you liked IT you would like this book, it doesn’t hold a candle to IT.