Cover Image: All Hallows

All Hallows

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Member Reviews

All Hallows is the perfect read for the upcoming spooky season. Halloween night of 1984, say no more. Books set in the 80s are a favorite and bring on some neighborhood drama, I am here for it. This book released early January and while I really enjoyed it, I think waiting until the cool crisp October evenings would make it even better.

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All Hallows follows A LOT of people in a neighborhood in a Massachusetts town. The number of characters really worked against this story. There were so many that I found it hard to remember who was who and what was going on with each one. I actually had to write down all of the characters and notes about them so I could remember who they were, even though their lives are intertwined with one another’s. There were definitely characters I liked following more than others, but overall having the perspective change so frequently made me feel detached from the story.

This book is classified as a horror novel, however, it reads more like a domestic drama. The focus of the book really revolves around the lives and relationships of one neighborhood. There are random, creepy children in vintage Halloween costumes thrown in to help the horror plotline ahead, but there is very little horror in the book. It was a SUPER slow burn and didn’t get into the horror portion until the last 1/4 of the book. Unfortunately, the horror portion wasn’t scary and I found it kind of boring. I almost would have preferred it just stayed a drama to stay consistent. The horror piece just felt thrown together at the last minute.

The nostalgia vibes were on point and the writing itself was good. I did feel that some aspects of the story were slightly reminiscent of Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky, but that may have just been a connection I made in my mind. Overall, I didn’t really enjoy this book and probably wouldn’t recommend it. I will say, however, that I’m definitely willing to give Christopher Golden another shot in the future.

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<i>All Hallows</i> comps itself to <i>Stranger Things</i>, but I have to say this reminded me more of <i>Fear Street: 1994</i> mixed with a neighborhood drama. It's got complex relationship dynamics, queer romance, and of course, especially towards the end, gore and death.

I think if you go into this book knowing it's a slow burn horror that focuses more on character and relationships, you'll really enjoy it! The bulk of the reveals and horror come during the final act of the book, and I have to say it was satisfying to watch the action rollout. I wish we would've learned more about the origins of some of the horrors, but I really enjoyed what we did get.

Definitely a good read for fall and, specifically, Halloween Night!

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Fantastic seasonal read. I love that it takes place on Halloween night and harkens back to those nostalgic Halloweens of my youth, watching Michael Myers stalk babysitters and scaring the crap out of myself with those movies! This one is just plain spooky and I liked the supernatural elements as well. I did find the number of children as victims pretty disturbing, but it reminded me a LOT of Stephen King. A great spooky season read.

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Thank you to St. Martin's Press for an ARC Z IN EXCHANGE FOR a review.

Anyway, I love Golden's writing and this is no exception. The dread just builds and builds and I have to say I finished this book in a day. Golden is slowly becoming a must-buy author for me. I recommend.

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This was a solid horror but nowhere near my favorite. I kept expecting twists and I felt like I was let down quite a bit.

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This is a spooky read that would be perfect to read around Halloween time! It was creepy and atmospheric and keeps the reader on the edge of their seats. With the upcoming spooky season, this one will be one to check out for sure for any horror lover! 3.5/5 stars, rounding up to 4 on Goodreads.

Thank you to NetGalley, St Martin’s Press, and Christopher Golden for providing me with this gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.

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I expected this book to be a bit better than what it was. Although I did enjoy it but I had somewhat higher hopes for it. Thank you for letting me read it!

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If you’re looking for the perfect horror read for Halloween weekend this year, All Hallows is it.

The setting was my favorite part of this book. The entire novel took place over the course of one Halloween night in the 1980s. It was complete with descriptions of Halloween costumes, the Haunted Woods, parties, and a demon known as “the Cunning Man.”

The descriptive details were done so well that I could imagine that I was right there on Halloween night alongside the neighborhood’s cast of characters. And believe me, there really was a whole cast of characters and multiple POVs 🤣

However, despite how much I loved the spooky setting, the rest of the story fell flat for me. For a horror novel, I really thought the book focused a lot more on the neighborhood drama than the actual plot line about the Cunning Man. I mean, there was a LOT of neighborhood drama.

Towards the end of the book is really where the action started- and I really did enjoy the last 20%, which is why this is still a solid 3 star read for me.

Although it’s only the end of July, All Hallows really made me crave October 👻🍂

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This book was like an incredibly warm and nostalgic blanket made up of equals parts vintage horror, and reoccurring nightmares. I thought it was spectacularly paced, and just disturbing enough to believe that it could have happened in your own small town. I hate comps but think Stranger Things meets IT meets Fear Street., with just a little water to dilute the intensity that threesome could cause.

It's Halloween night in 1984, and All Hallows follows multiple families in the small town of Coventry, Massachusetts as they prepare for the nights festivities: a homemade haunted forest walk-through, an annual house party, and of course, good ol' trick or treating. Parallel to these event preparations, each family is dealing with their own domestic and familial issues, and we're given a front-row seat to ALL of the drama. Add in a looming paranormal threat, and Christopher Golden has pretty much created my ABSOLUTE favourite literary (and media) concoction. Like are you kidding me !? In my opinion, the very best parts of any horror book or movie are the real-life horrors playing in the foreground (broken hearts, broken families, coming-of-age, rocky friendships, hell, even something as simple as flunking a test)—it gives the outlandish narratives so much more depth, and relatability. Yeah, you want to be scared off your rocker, but you want to connect with the people who have fallen victim to the scary things.

Speaking of falling victim, Golden doesn't shy away from axing your favourite characters, and being totally nonchalant about it—again, a must-have plot device for any epic horror book or movie (I WANNA FEEL ALL THE THINGS, EVEN DEEP SADNESS AND ANGER). Just writing this review is making me want to stop writing this review and go read it again.

My only caveat was that the characters were a little hard to keep track of at first, but UGH, get a pen and notepad and write that ish down and just dive back in to the greatness that was this book!

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I gave this a four out of five stars, I really enjoyed this story. I liked all of the different POVs. I got confused on the dads and who was who. I kept mixing them up.

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I love reading books that take place around Halloween. This is a coming of age story that focuses on Halloween night in 1984, when a Massachusetts neighborhood comes together for its final All Hallows celebration. In the midst of the party of the year, children dressed in vintage costumes join in and ask for help hiding from The Cunning Man. This was a creepy-ish story with atmosphere, but not much character development. A slow-burning Halloween tale that never quite finds its full fire. Read this novel if you’re looking for Halloween vibes with not much scariness.

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I have been trying to read this for months, but kept forgetting what happened the day before and would have to read pages over and over again to move on because it just isn’t memorable. I ended up DNFing around the 40% mark. I just could not get into this book at all. The characters were dull and the storyline was… not entertaining or interesting enough to continue. It seemed like it would be better suited for teens, maybe? I will not be reviewing this elsewhere since I did not finish it.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley and for the review copy.

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The 80's nostalgia is excellent and a perfect setting for this Halloween horror fiction story. I would suggest reading this one in a quiet area to focus cause there is quiet a cast of characters to keep track of. If you're looking for a spooky read this may just be right up your alley. This one definitely if for reader's of the supernatural thriller genre.

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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60784620-all-hallows#:~:text=This%20one%20started,an%20October%20read.

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This is definitely a fun read if you are planning ahead for spooky season. It took me a bit to get into the story because it's a lot of characters to keep track of, but so worth it! A good horror with lots of creepy moments! ⭐⭐⭐

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If you are looking for a retro, haunting read that gives off Stranger Things vibes that’s perfect for spooky season than add All Hallows to your tbr.

All Hallows takes place in the early 80s one Halloween night. The story is told in multiple POVs throughout the night giving you an all encompassing picture of the night. There’s a haunted woods attraction hosted at one family’s house, a backyard party hosted at another, and kids trick or treating throughout the night. But when four mysterious children appear during these events eerie things begin to happen and your typical Halloween night becomes anything but that.


I was somewhat invested in the story but I wasn’t surprised by how the story turned out- I guess it takes a lot to really shock me anymore and I knew what was coming. I did really like the multiple POVs throughout because it kept the story moving. I think if you are just starting to get into reading horror books this is a good place to start.


Thank you @stmartinspress and @netgalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

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All Hallows is one of those books that I was hoping would get better as I went along, but unfortunately this had a story line that meandered too much for my liking, destroying any tension that built up. Not only did it do this once, but several times throughout the story, leaving me a bit disappointed in the overall experience. It's not that it was boring and I definitely didn't dislike it by any means, but scary? No. Full of tension? No. Full of tingles and shivers? No.

First of all, the nostalgic feeling of the 80s was something I loved about this book. At first, I thought it was going to be one of the strengths of the book, that whole neighbourhood feeling when everyone got together to enjoy a night full of fun and escapades. The Barbosa's always put on an epic Haunted Woods and this was to be their last one so they wanted it to be a good one, while the Koenig's were getting ready to host their after-Halloween party. Fun, right? It was until the author decided to bring all this neighbourhood drama into the story about a philandering alcoholic husband who created chaos with a number of friendships; I am not usually opposed to this drama, but the focus on it took away from the unfolding drama that was supposed to be the highlight of the story, the return of the Cunning Man.

When the slasher stuff finally starts to happen, I was already starting to lose interest in the story, about two-thirds into the book. Children dressed in these vintage clothing, a clown, a Raggedy Ann, and a scarecrow, would not really have drawn that much attention in 1984 even though I remember Madonna and Michael Jackson being hugely popular costumes as well as Star Wars. There was always someone dressed as a clown. But I did appreciate all of the 80's references to remind people of the time line.

As a result of all this, the plot is the weakest point of the novel, with the Cunning Man and the creepy children sort of running in the background, and once in a while they show up to deal with some neighbourhood kid, but the whole story becomes disjointed because of all the other stuff going on. When the Cunning Man and the kids should have been absolutely terrifying, the author had already lost me with the other drama, enough hat I didn't really care about what was happening. And on a side note, I did have an issue with one of the relationships, although not the relationship itself, but the openness of it. This was 1984, and I do have an issue when modern sensibilities and thinking are put on the past for as teen growing up the 80s, exploring all forms of sexuality was not really acceptable. We are talking about the time of the AIDS epidemic when fear mongering was quite high, so teenagers were definitely not encouraged to openly explore their sexuality. And furthermore, a lot of people left their doors unlocked during this time period and would definitely not have been thinking someone is a pedophile the moment they saw someone, especially in a small neighbourhood like this, especially not kids. That is current-day thinking. Small things, but they were jarring nonetheless.

All Hallows had a lot of potential, but the over-focus on the neighbourhood drama which included everything from infidelity to alcoholism to job loss to abuse, affected the overall story and rendered the Cunning Man and his children to the background. Unfortunately, instead of the eerie and creepy, I got disjointed and...weird. I did really appreciate the nostalgia and the creepy forest and would love to have had a haunted forest like that while I was growing up, but it was not enough to save this book for me.

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My Rating 3.5 stars
I do think I would have enjoyed this book more and been more spooked by it if I had read it in the fall. So definitely wait for more cool weather.

For me, this book had a lot of characters that it was following and I know why it did it and it did help move the story along and show what was happening all over the town of Coventry on Halloween night. But it got to be a little confusing for me sometimes with who was friends with whom and how everybody knew each other. By the end of the book I had it down but for at least the first half I was struggling.

Overall I did find myself enjoying this book because I need to know what exactly was going to happen on Halloween night and who in the world the Cunning man was and why all of these kids were afraid of him. I was not expecting it to be for the reason it ended up being and was thrown for a loop during the last quarter with all that went down and how action-packed it was. This book has a little bit of everything, kids enjoying Halloween and just having a good time; family drama from cheating, to divorce, sibling squabbles; and friendships that have ups and downs on Halloween night as everyone tries to figure out what is going and to survive till Halloween night is fully over.

This book is good for people just getting into thrillers as I didn't find it too terrifyingly spooky, just more so creepy and interesting.


The review will be posted sometime between August-October 2023 on my blog and Instagram.

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It took awhile for this book to pick up speed. I considered DNFing it at around 100 pages. Then, I turned to read the last page and ended up reading the acknowledgements instead. It turns out, the author and I were both 17 in 1984. After that, I decided I'd finish it no matter what. What I thought would be 2.5-3 star read for me actually turned out to be a 4-star good, creepy story.

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