Publication date: 9/16/24
Genre: horror/comedy

Six adolescent paper boys are enticed to canvas for their local newspaper in the infamous Hampton Heights neighborhood in exchange for a Burger King feast. However, what they don't know is that creatures and cryptids lurk around every corner.

This unexpected, clever twist on fighting your own demons and coming of age was quite the adventure!! Not only was it a fun read, but it made me laugh. There were super eerie parts that made my skin crawl due to Mr. Kois's prose. I also love love LOVED the fairy tale/folklore aspects that were woven into each pair's story.

Thank you Netgalley, Harper Perennial, and those involved in allowing me to read this ARC! What a privilege!

Hampton Heights is a modern fantasy anthology following a cast of youngsters selling newspaper subscriptions in an otherworldly neighborhood outside Milwaukee -- along their respective journeys, the boys run afoul of witches, werewolves, hodags, trolls, and more. The narrative style is reminiscent of Stephen King with an offbeat, "Goonies"-esque sense of humor. Fans of "Stranger Things" and "It" will find much to love about this one. It's a coming-of-age story of mythic proportions, with our characters comprising a found family by journey's end. I enjoyed the distinctive personalities of each of the characters and their stories were varied and fantastical, though I yearned for more of a unifying element to tie everything together in a more satisfying way. Overall, I enjoyed the read and would recommend to fans of horror and modern fantasy.

Dan Kois did a great job in bringing you into this type of book and had everything that I wanted. The concept was wonderfully done and the overall world was interesting. The characters were everything that I was hoping for and enjoyed them in this universe. Dan Kois does a great writing style and left me wanting to read more.

If you like supernatural stories, then this book is for you!!!

You start this book off thinking it will be a normal, teenage boy story and then it adds some supernatural storylines that make you want to keep reading until the end.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved how the chapters broke off into each of the boys' stories. It added so much more to the book knowing what was going on with each of them at the same time as the others. It also had an ending that wrapped everything up nicely.

After reading this, it would be cool if the Hampton Heights neighborhood existed. What a ride that would be!

4.5 stars

This book was weird, hilarious and fun! It was everything I was hoping it would be. Adventurous, a little absurd, and lighthearted.
The characters were great, and the mishaps even better.
I loved it!

This is a very weird book, you guys. But it's weird in a good way, not weird in a “I can't believe I suffered through this nonsense” sort of way. There are succubi and trolls and witches and werewolves and Burger King (one of these is not like the others), and it is a wild and entertaining ride.

Hampton Heights focuses on a group of paperboys (and their irresponsible boss, Kevin) who are sent out into Milwaukee's most bizarre neighborhood to sell newspaper subscriptions. When the boys are split up into pairs in order to canvass the neighborhood, this novel essentially becomes a series of interconnected short stories. Each pair (plus Kevin) have their own separate supernatural experiences while exploring Hampton Heights, and they don't meet up again until the very end.

My favorite story of the bunch was probably Ryan and Mark's adventure with the witches. There's something about it that's so magical and fairy tale-ish and perhaps even a little heartwarming. I'm just ever so slightly surprised that the witches' cottage wasn't made of gingerbread, because it seems like it should be that sort of tale.

Al and Nishu's experience with the troll is also a tremendously entertaining read – it's funnier and more lighthearted than the other chapters. What do you do when a troll is giving you problems? You trap it upside down in a backpack, of course!

Really, all of the boys' adventures are quite amusing and there wasn't a one of them that I didn't enjoy. And Kevin? Well, let's just say that Kevin should never be left alone in charge of children ever again and leave it at that. I mean, this book is set the 80s and I can say from first-hand experience that parents were a little more lax when it came to the quality of their kids' adult supervision back then, but I'm pretty sure that even my parents wouldn't have approved of Kevin's shenanigans.

While this book definitely has some horror elements, it's not scary at all. If you're not generally a horror fan, no worries – there's no blood or gore or jump scenes (can books have jump scenes?) or anything of the sort. There are monsters and supernatural occurrences, but they're more Hocus Pocus than A Nightmare on Elm Street, if that makes any sense.

So, yeah – this was a super fun and enjoyable read and I loved every minute of it. My overall rating: 4.55 stars, rounded up.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review.