Kindle Press, 2016

What is going on with Griffin Rinaldi? He wishes he knew. Sometimes he feels like his body is dead and he’s observing someone else going through the motions of his life. At other times he sees the red-haired kid from his dad’s stories even though no one else can see him there.

Griffin’s got a tough life; it would be hard to deny that. His dad died less than a year ago, and his grandfather, whose heath has been better, is trying to help him through the worst of it, but Griffin’s mom doesn’t know quite what to do with him, and his aunt’s convinced he’s possessed. When an unusual snowstorm comes to Griffin’s home on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the perfect storm that hits Griffin and his family is only partly due to the weather.

Though The Disembodied is marketed as an adult psychological thriller, I read it as a young adult story for a couple of reasons. First, the main character is 13 years old, and the story is told primarily through his eyes. Second, after the beginning, told from the grandfather’s perspective, the pace and focus of the book felt more like a young adult thriller than one written for adults.

I would have liked to feel more emotionally engaged with the characters in The Disembodied. Most of the most fraught and dangerous scenes are shown as memories, robbing them of the power they might have held if I had believed that the outcome was uncertain. Nonetheless, the story held my interest until the end. Though the story was somewhat suspenseful, I didn’t find it spooky. I’d be more inclined to save it for a snowy evening read than for Halloween as suggested by the publisher. The descriptions of the cold and snow left this New Englander shivering on my couch.

I received The Disembodied through Kate Tilton Book Bloggers Reach Out from Anthony Hains in exchange for an honest review.