This story did not hold my attention; I did not finish it.

I think the book has a lot of possibilities. Do think it needs another editorial run through (which I expect it will get).
Thank you for the opportunity to read it. See my posted reviews below.

Dan Chaon's new literary thriller, <i>Ill Will</i> starts with the story of a horrific murder scene in Dustin Tillman's childhood. The novel spirals downward from there. Dustin is the most unreliable narrator telling a story that is obviously rigged and I kept reading, hoping to get to the truth. I felt that I was plodding along in the foggy world Dustin and his son, Aaron, were living in...no sparks of life here. I agree with others that even the resolution is a mystery.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Ballantine Books (March 7th 2017).

The ill wind was something that swept everyone away. With some use of flash backs we see a pretty happy mostly normal family. One family comes into a bit of money by way of accident on the job to the father. He wants to adopt a child and does take in a foster child with a troubled past. Add an overly imaginative child and female twin cousins and life becomes more fantasy at times than real.
After a horrific fire the fantasy plays a part in the foster child taking the blame for the adult parents demise.
Looking at Dustin, the surviving son, who is still quite gullible and is now a psychologist we find someone still living some fantasy life. He meets up with another individual who brings ideas of how young college males are being systematically attacked and drowned. Before long everyone is caught up in this hypothetical drama with unforeseen and deadly consequences.

Thank You to Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine Books for providing me with an advanced copy of Dan Chaon's Novel, Ill Will, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- In the 1980's, Dustin's parents, aunt, and uncle were brutally murdered, and his older adopted brother, a troubled teen named Rusty, was convicted of the crime. Twelve year old Dustin and his teenage cousin, Kate, were key witnesses at Rusty's trial. They fed into the satan worship hysteria that was popular in the 80's, explaining how Rusty murdered rabbits during satanic rituals, and how he had involved Kate and Dustin.

Thirty years later, new evidence has exonerated Rusty and he is finally freed from jail. Aiding the fight for Rusty's innocence, is Kate's twin sister, Wave, who is estranged from her family, due to her disagreements over how their had parents died and Rusty's trial.

Dustin works as a therapist and his wife has just died from cancer. He is unsettled to learn that Rusty is out of prison and refuses contact with his brother. Dustin is struggling to cope with his grief, and can't connect with his two college aged sons, Dennis, who lives on campus, and Aaron, living at home with a barely concealed heroin addiction. Dustin works with a client who is obsessed with a string of murders, college boys who are dumped in rivers, and soon, he joins his client in the obsession. Dustin's paranoia increases, when Aaron's best friend, nicknamed Rabbit, is murdered. Is this a coincidence or is Rabbit a victim of a serial killer? Signs point to a satanic ritual, could that be a factor? Is Rusty somehow involved? If Rusty didn't kill his family, who did?

LIKE- This is my first novel by Chaon and I don't often choose suspense-crime novels, but I thoroughly enjoyed Ill Will. The story is engaging and fast paced, a true page-turner. I never quite knew where the story was headed and I was genuinely surprised by the ending. Ill Will is creepy and disturbing, with rich imagery.

Speaking of imagery, the grimy settings are filled with sensory elements, rooting me in the story. For example, there is a former mortuary that has been turned into a drug house, with many of the elements of the former business still somewhat intact, like the elegant chairs that once held the grieving, are now draped with strung out teenagers. The series of small rooms in a mortuary, lend themselves to this unsettling experience of a horror house: as Aaron walks through to score, he mentions not knowing if a meth-head would jump out to stab him. The scene setting is rich throughout the story, with settings like the "stuck-in-another-era", dusty farm house that the kids are sent to living with their grandmother after their parents die, or Rabbit's house, unkept since he is a heroin addict and his single-mom is dying of cancer. Not a single location in Ill Will is pretty, which fits with this grim story. I felt unsettled throughout.

As with the settings, the characters are strong and unforgettable. Ill Will is told from different point-of-views, which works well, as it would have been difficult to spend an entire novel in Dustin's paranoid mind or Aaron's drug-fueled haze. I was most interested in the dynamic between Kate and Wave, inseparable twins in childhood, who are driven completely apart by their parent's death and the trial. They have a similar reaction to the murders, an intense paranoia that has followed them into adulthood. However, rather than living off the grid like Wave, Kate's sense of safety comes from living in an apartment in the middle of Hollywood Blvd, among people rather than the isolation of her sister. Neither can let this fear go, but the way they manage it, is opposite.

Chaon makes interesting narrative choices. Sometimes he jumps into first person, which upped the intensity in the moments he used it. He also plays with style, for example, dividing a page into two or three columns, and writing a different scenes to be read in parallel. I've never seen this done, but it was creative and served the story.

DISLIKE- The only negative and this is minor, is that I found myself unevenly interested in places, in these spots, I thought the pacing, which was generally rapid, slowed. Usually this happened during the Dustin narrative. Too much Dustin.

RECOMMEND- Yes, Ill Will is exciting and surprising. I'm definitely going to read Chaon's other novels. I love finding these new-to-me-authors, that have already written several novels that I can immediately devour!

What a twisted tale we weave. Normally, I don't like stories that have only evil characters, but this book is the exception.
Basically, it is the story of a psychologist, his upbringing, personal life and patients. Dustin's parents were murdered allegedly by his sinister step brother when he was growing up, but the details are murky. One of his patients thinks he has proof of foul play in the drownings of several college boys. Now Dustin's step brother is being released from prison and Dustin does not know where the truth lies anymore. Very suspenseful.

Chaong's thriller is definitely that. This book leaves you with questions, but has you in suspense the entire time. Ill Will, told from multiple points of view, follows the serial killings of "drowned" college boys and brings back talk of Satanic Ritual fears of the 80's. A little long, as it started to read a little slow, but definitely a worthy addition to the thriller genre. I agree with other reviewers who describe this is something similar to early Gillian Flynn.

So, so, SOOOOOOOOOOOO good! I loved this book. I've been obsessed with the world that Chaon created for three days and I'm so sad it has ended. I found Dustin to be a very interesting character and someone I deeply cared about his story. I felt the different timelines in the story added such drama and mystery to the book, it really worked. Five stars!!

This book is very unsettling but in a good way. From the beginning on the novel, the reader is drawn into the tense, creepy story. It's very descriptive and I was immediately drawn into the story. Although at times the story is told in different time periods and from different points of view, it wasn't distracting or hard to follow. If anything, it makes the story and each character more vivid in your mind. A very good, albeit twisted story that leaves you guessing until the end. It also makes you realize that your own family isn't so bad...;-)

Who to trust? Instinctively, readers accept the first narrative voice in the novel, that of psychologist Dustin. In his present life, he seems reasonable and aware. He's grief-stricken over the recent death of his wife. So maybe it's okay if he neglects his son or if he seems sucked into a weird serial killer conspiracy.

But Dustin isn't the only narrator in this dark and twisting tale. Some of the story is told from his son Aaron's point of view, a college-age boy who is only pretending to be in college, and not very convincingly. Aaron is heavy into drugs, and may not be very tuned into reality either.

Then there is the story from Dustin's past, seeping into his present life like a blood stain. Dustin's parents and his aunt and uncle were shot to death while Dustin and his two cousins slept in a camper in the driveway. The deaths were pinned on Dustin's older foster brother, Rusty, a likely candidate because of his preoccupation with Satanism. Rusty is released from prison as the story begins. He has secretly reached out to Aaron, and who knows if the things Rusty tells him are really real?

This is a story that doesn't let go. After turning the last page, I let out a howl of disappointment. I could go back and re-read the whole thing, if it weren't for the stack of books waiting to be read.

I understand that this is an ARC but the formatting in this e-book made it incredibly difficult to read. The writing was choppy and the character development was terrible.

I requested a digital ARC from Netgalley after hearing about this book. It sounded dark and creepy, and a perfect read for midwinter. When my request was approved by the publisher I was thrilled, and settled in to read this story about a possible serial killer that gets under the skin of Dustin, whose parents and aunt and uncle were brutally killed when he was young, the possible victims of a Satanic cult.

It was all these possibles that made me eager to read this book. Was anyone who they said they were, were the circumstances really what they seemed? At the beginning it was perfect. College boys were disappearing and turning up drowned several days or months later, causing most police to write their deaths off as binge drinking accidents, except for one outlier, Aqil, who confides his theories about the killings being related to some kind of ritual to Dustin, his psychiatrist. Dustin has demons of his own -- his family was brutally killed when he was thirteen, a crime blamed on his foster brother, Rusty, a troubled nineteen year old, who was said to be caught up in a Satanic cult. Dustin is now grown and married with two boys of his own, and his beloved wife is dying of cancer. Aqil's theories provide a distraction from the troubles of his home life. In the meantime, Rusty has been exonerated for the killings, and after thirty years in prison he has been released.

But as the story got more detailed, with more points of view coming into play, I got a little lost. I wish the author had delved a little more into the mystery of memory, and what made the Satanic killing scare of the 1980s and early 1990s so wide-spread. I also wish more focus had been either on Dustin's perceptions of the past, or his perceptions of the present. The novel felt more unfocused the more it went on, and the jumping back and forth in time didn't help. I was still eager to get to the end, but by the time I did, I was more than a little disappointed. For so much promise this book falls flat at the end.

Still, this is not a bad read. If you like atmospheric thrillers, you will probably like this, just be prepared to be a little frustrated by it.

Dan Chaon presents a novel about two separate sets of murders: the first taking place 30 years prior to the book's beginning and the other set in present day. By itself these separate murders would be sufficient to underscore a fascinating novel about the circumstances of the crimes. Dustin Tillman is a psychologist practicing in suburban Cleveland and with a saying he relates to his patients; "We are always telling stories to ourselves about ourselves" Thirty years ago his parents and his aunt and uncle were murdered. Dustin's adoptive brother Rusty was tried for the crime and sentenced to life in prison. The murders coincided with a period of Satanic worship and in spite of a lack of evidence Rusty was remanded to prison.
Dustin receives the notice that after 30 years Rusty has been freed due to evidence found via DNA testing. His testimony helped to send Rusty to prison and his worry is - will he come after me for revenge. At the same time a patient becomes friends with Dustin and begins telling him the details of a series of murders aimed at young men. They are captured and after their murder are dumped into a river to be found later. The patient points out that apparently the dates of the killings are related and predicts the date for the next crime.
Mr Chaon tells his story by going into his characters and relating their thought processes and reactions to what is happening. The thoughts are distorted by what is being viewed and experienced as is normal in life. This type of approach makes the novel a study in interpretation by people involved in the events. The reader's point of view changes with the events portrayed and does not necessarily depict what is actually happening. It is quite a departure from murder mysteries that go from the crime, through the premise and the logical solution allowing the reader to "solve" the case, usually before the end.
You are going to either enjoy this approach or get turned off by the apparent meandering going on. I found it a very interesting method and would really like Mr Chaon to try this again.

When I read the blurb I really was interested in what this story was going to be about. It seemed to right up my alley. Well that wasn't the case for me I was really totally lost through out the whole book. It seemed too have two different plots trying to come together, not too mention the sentences not being finished. Another thing that bothered me was the jumps between characters and I didn't know who we were dealing with at first, until I read a few pages then it clicked.
What really bothered me is what looked like maybe journal entries??? Not really sure what too call them but they were incomplete sentences that drove me crazy.
I really liked how it seemed that this story deals with memories and how being young you can have your memories altered which seemed to be the case with Dustin. Though we slowly learn this throughout the story.
It seems that Dustin's adopted brother Rusty likes the dark side of things so when their parents along with two others are murdered. Rusty seems to have the murders pinned on him, though is he truly innocent? It seems that Rusty has a few things to deal with when he gets out. Now while Dustin is dealing with his brother, he is dealing with things going on in his personal life and trying to solve murders. It seems that Dustin isn't running on all cylinders.
The twist about the murders doesn't come into play until well towards the end and at the time I kept wondering if the murder was Dustin's alter ego or maybe even a figment of his imagination. I wasn't really sure as I was just not able too keep up.
The book has possible potential maybe a clearer plot line or if the author is going to bring two plots together do it in a way that you are left with no questions.
As far as characters go I felt they were just one dimensional I couldn't connect or relate in any way.

I don’t believe I’ve read a novel this grim in years, possibly not since I read AWAIT YOUR REPLY by this same author. The cadre of characters in ILL WILL, while not the same as those who appeared in AWAIT YOUR REPLY, still possesses many of the same dark, dysfunctional characteristics and unrelentingly harsh life experiences. From murder and drug addiction to sexual abuse and self-deception, it’s all there for the reader to vicariously experience.

The Tillman family, as a whole, is a disaster just waiting to happen. From father Dustin, a gullible Cleveland psychiatrist (who actually should be seeing one himself) to his drug addicted son Aaron to his adopted brother Rusty (recently released from prison after serving 30 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit) this is a group whose combined pasts are macabre and whose futures look dismal. Throw a crazy cop with a serial murder theory and a couple of odd cousins into the mix and you have narrative that will keep you reading in an effort to discover just what the heck is going on.

Without giving away too much, suffice to say that not all the characters in ILL WILL are who they purport to be and many intentions are murky at best. You may want to prepare yourself for this read with a couple of glasses of your favorite wine or take an occasional break from reading by viewing an episode or two of Everybody Loves Raymond since there are absolutely no laughs in this psychologically taxing novel.

A dark, dark book with an excellent twist. Dustin Tillman doesn't remember who killed his parents, aunt and uncle; or does he? In this book that carries you through a serial killer hunt, an odd therapy patient and a drug-addicted son, who is the real villain? Excellent read.

This is a story for someone who likes both true crime stories as well as psychological horror. Some people like to use “thriller” as a euphemism for literary books with horror elements, but I don’t want to do that. Horror shouldn’t be a bad word. Ill Will incorporates depictions of the Satanic Panic of the 80s both during the time that it was happening and during the fall-out. Dreamlike sequences unfold in three places at once, realistic and non-sensationalized depictions of heroin use and physical injury are at once tasteful and cringe-inducing, alternate realities converge to throw the reader off the scent of what might or might not have happened.

Chaon hammers hard on the theme of unreliable memory. “This was the thesis of my dissertation, in some ways,” Dustin narrates, “that experience is so subjective that multiple things actually do happen. That we can’t experience objective reality.”

Outwardly, Dustin’s career is damaged by his participation in repressed-memory-retrieval and a resulting lawsuit. Inwardly, Rusty’s release from prison causes him to question everything that he remembers about the night his parents were murdered. Did he even see Rusty there that night? And if Rusty is not the killer, who is?

What might on the surface seem like a typical whodunnit turns into an eerie, non-linear nightmare. There were entire chapters where I couldn’t be sure whether a particular character actually existed or not. There are large missing pieces that are presented just completely and incompletely enough that the imagination rushes in to fill the vacuum. Like any good scary piece of fiction, this lingers.

[Excerpted from my blog: entirety of blog is available through the attached link.]

Great story and vivid writing. I was intrigued throughout by this story line and have to admit I "didn't see it coming" at the conclusion. The characters were rich and the plot full of satisfying twists--a page turner for sure. I do wish the ending was more decisive but I'm hoping for a sequel! I can see a screenplay from this book--very dark at times with outstanding parallel dialogues. I want to see more from Dan Chaon and think this is a perfect book for lover's of Gillian Flynn.

This is an excellent book, extremely well written and an interesting story. A little Twilight Zone, Twin Peaks and almost Shakespearean tragedy create a twisted tale of a family and family of tragedies. Just who is whom, really and what drives each of them to make the choices they do can get confusing here and there; everyone has so many layers.
The author is quite skillful with his descriptions of each character and gives each a unique and authentic voice. His descriptions of feelings and particularly those as a result of a revelation, is wonderful. He elicits visceral and physical reactions to thought and feelings.

I am not entirely clear exactly what happened to each and everyone, but its ok, it seems everyone ended up where they were ultimately destined to and the ending felt very right.

I wasn't able to complete this book....at about 34% through, the set up changed and there appeared to be two unrelated pages on each page. It made no sense and the type was very small....sorry.