Title: Something Wicked This Way Comes
Author: Ray Bradbury
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 278
Rating: 4/5
I picked this up as part of a buddy read with Graham Quigley on BookTube, but I’ve got to be honest, I pretty much whizzed through it in 24 hours or so. Graham said that there was something about the writing style that reminded him of Harper Lee, but it put me more in mind of The Night Circus if it had been written by Shirley Jackson.
What’s interesting here is that it was the writing itself that really stood out to me. It was beautifully done, and some of the sentences alone make it worth picking up. At the same time, though, the characters felt pretty fleshed out and the plot was fantastic, if a little weird and occasionally hard to follow.
I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy this before I picked it up, partly because I’ve enjoyed Bradbury’s work in the past and partly because the front cover is blurbed by Stephen King. This is one of those novels that I think every serious writer should read, and horror writers in particular will find plenty here that gives them food for thought.
So all in all, this is one of those classics that lives up to its hype, and I can see why it would be especially formative for writers of genre fiction. I also think it has a kind of widespread appeal that not all classics have, so I’d recommend just picking it up whenever you get a chance. I promise you won’t regret it.
