The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson surprised me; it turned out to be more than what I expected.

from description: "A short, irresistible, and bittersweet coming-of-age story in the vein of Stranger Things and Stand by Me about a group of misfit kids who spend an unforgettable summer investigating local ghost stories and urban legends
Growing up in 1980s Niagara Falls - a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place - Jake Baker spends most of his time with his uncle Calvin, a kind but eccentric enthusiast of occult artifacts and conspiracy theories. The summer Jake turns twelve, he befriends a pair of siblings new to town, and so Calvin decides to initiate them all into the "Saturday Night Ghost Club." But as the summer goes on, what begins as a seemingly light-hearted project may ultimately uncover more than any of its members had imagined. With the alternating warmth and sadness of the best coming-of-age stories, The Saturday Night Ghost Club is a note-perfect novel that poignantly examines the haunting mutability of memory and storytelling, as well as the experiences that form the people we become, and establishes Craig Davidson as a remarkable literary talent."

When the novel began with the observations of a brain surgeon, I was a bit taken aback. The narrative <b>is</b> about misfit kids and an unforgettable summer, but there is also an acutely philosophical theme of memory and its vagaries. The adult Jake moves from his current career as a neurosurgeon to his memories of the summer when he was twelve--his family, his friends, and his understanding of events in the past.

Read in March; blog review scheduled for June 26.

NetGalley/Penguin Group
Coming of Age. First published in 2018; July 9, 2019. Print length: 240 pages.

The Saturday Night Ghost Club is an EXCELLENT novel. This came as totally unexpected to me. I thought it would be a simply ghost story but it was everything but that. I highly recommend it!

** Full review to come closer to release.

The Saturday Night Ghost Club - Pub Date July 9, 2019

"What follows is an account, as I choose to remember it, of my twelfth year on this planet - the summer of the Saturday Night Ghost Club."

Part ghost story, part tragedy, part love story, part coming of age tale. This is an incredibly fun and haunting account of Jake Baker's summer as a 12 year old boy in Canada. The story toggles back and forth between that summer and present day - where Jake shares experiences of his current job occupation as a neurosurgeon that relate to the effects of memory and the tendency our brains have to protect us from actual events.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Whipped up from the ingredients that make up a nostalgic run through all a kid’s wildest fantasies from conspiracies, mysteries, supernatural and whatnot, Saturday Night Ghost Club is a rousing thriller that will give folks of all ages lots to love.

A truly special coming of age story that will stay with me for a very long time. The author manages to incorporate so many themes, so many emotions and so much empathy into this story that it puts it into a league of its own. I’ll be recommending this book to everyone.