Wild Wolf Publishing, $2.99
Horror, 2017

How do I give a synopsis of Benjamin Appleby-Dean’s Lamplight without giving away important plot points? Basically, a bunch of teenagers are being super annoying with one another and the reader, until they realize that they are somehow caught in a potentially dangerous supernatural circumstance that may just do them in and make the reader smile with joy. I know, that sounds terrible, but that’s basically the essence of the bulk of this story: kids and their phones and petty social politics, all of them being so petty and mundane that my brain feels like it has half melted from boredom by the time I reach the midway point.

Here’s the thing, though: there are some solid ideas that went into the premise, and the second half of the story coalesces into a potentially gripping supernatural tale. Potentially, that is, because getting there requires the reader to first care about a bunch of petty, thinly drawn characters to get to that point as well as to develop some degree of concern about these characters’ fates. Some people may compare this in some ways to Stephen King’s It, but I personally think the comparisons are rather superficial and cosmetic in nature. If anything, much of the story here draws its inspiration from influences that predate Stephen King – as much as his more fanatical fans would like to believe otherwise, that fellow is not the be-all and end-all of horror fiction – and there are certainly some creative juices that have gone into this story.

My problem is: I don’t give a damn about Jess, Jane, Candy, Mandy, Tutti, Fruitti, or whatever the names of these teens are. The author way too many pages making these characters as obnoxious and uninteresting as possible instead of showing me who these characters are inside, so I end up being more fascinated by the concepts and ideas that go into this story, than the very story itself. Am I making sense here? I like what the story could have been, rather than the story itself.

I waver between awarding this one two oogies and three oogies, but in the end, I can’t in good conscience give this thing a three when the first half of it is so uninteresting and dull, as well as vaguely obnoxious. File this one under good ideas, but below par execution.