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On a creepy island where everyone has a strange obsession with the year 1994, a newcomer arrives, hoping to learn the truth about her son's death--but finds herself pulled deeper and deeper into the bizarrely insular community and their complicated rules... Clifford Island. When Willow Stone finds these words written on the floor of her deceased son's bedroom, she's perplexed. She's never heard of it before, but soon learns it's a tiny island off of Wisconsin's Door County peninsula, 200 miles from Willow's home. Why would her son write this on his floor? Determined to find answers, Willow sets out for the island. After a few days on Clifford, Willow realizes: this place is not normal. Everyone seems to be stuck in a particular day in 1994: they wear outdated clothing, avoid modern technology, and, perhaps most mystifyingly, watch the OJ Simpson car chase every evening. When she asks questions, people are evasive, but she learns one thing: close your curtains at night. High schooler Lily Becker has lived on Clifford her entire life, and she is sick of the island's twisted mythology and adhering to the rules. She's been to the mainland, and everyone is normal there, so why is Clifford so weird? Lily is determined to prove that the islanders' beliefs are a sham. But are they? Five weeks after Willow arrives on the island, she disappears. Willow's brother Harper comes to Clifford searching for his sister, and when he learns the truth--that this island is far more sinister than anyone could have imagined--he is determined to blow the whole thing open. If he can get out alive...
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0On a creepy island where everyone has a strange obsession with the year 1994, a newcomer arrives, hoping to learn the truth about her son's death--but finds herself pulled deeper and deeper into the bizarrely insular community and their complicated rules.
This is a debut novel by Jimmy Juliano and quickly made its rounds on booktok and youtube which is ultimately how I found out about it. It sounded amazing and right up my horror loving alley so I had high hopes going into this book. Sometimes I think it would be better to step into horror books knowing nothing so I tried very hard not to know to much but it became impossible. Going in all I knew were rituals and a weird neighbor stringing up their dead neighbor to complete a daily ritual. That's all I needed. I was sucked in.
In Dead Eleven we have duel time lines between before Willow's disappearance and after when her brother Harper is on the island trying to figure out what happened. It reminded me very much of the tv show FROM how they cover their windows at night and are scared of the surrounding area. Its a small town repeating a single day from the 90's, removing everything and anything pertaining to Clifford from the internet all due to some ancient evil.
I am rounding this up from a 3.5, I did enjoy the book and went through it very fast, but I did expect more from it considering how good the first chapter was. Juliano put all his stock into chapter one and then just kind of slid along for the rest.
TW - human sacrifice, deceased child, rituals, referred drug use, underaged drinking, religious abuse, cult behaviour, demons.
Shared to Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/p/CvQj3xesL_b/
0The cover art, the fact that an ~odd~ community seems to be stuck in 1994 ✨ 📼 ♥️ This one was on my TBR for months & seemed to be right up my alley. However....... this book is LONG. The suspense is drawn out with little pay-off in the end. There were some spookier chapters, but none of the scares are sticking out or haunting me. The 90s nostalgia did win me over a bit (my mom always talks about the O.J. Simpson news coverage the week before I was born). The use of mixed media throughout was fun- letters, text messages, interviews, articles. Multiple POVs. Overall, it wasn't bad, wasn't great. I think it's a debut novel, so I'll likely check out his next project when it comes out ☺️
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