Review: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Title: Something Wicked This Way Comes
Series: n/a
Author: Ray Bradbury
Source/Format: Borrowed from the library; hardback
More Details: Fantasy  
Publisher/Publication Date: First published in 1962

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope's shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two inquisitive boys standing precariously on the brink of adulthood will soon discover the secret of the satanic raree-show's smoke, mazes, and mirrors, as they learn all too well the heavy cost of wishes - and the stuff of nightmare.

Something Wicked This Way Comes is one of those classic books that I’ve been meaning to read for a long time. I wanted to read it before the year was over, and now I can mark it off my TBR list. Something Wicked This Way Comes was good. I liked the story and the characters, especially the friendship between Jim and Will. While it wasn’t exactly a ghost story like Dead Voices by Katherine Arden, it did deal with powerful and mysterious forces, as well as the consequences of what someone would do to remain young forever. There was the carnival, Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show, so there were some scenes where the characters interacted with the rides and games. However, there was never a moment when there wasn’t something odd about the newcomers to the town, like the carnival and the way it arrived in the middle of the night. As the very first page of Something Wicked This Way Comes says, “One year Halloween came on October 24, three hours after midnight.” It led to the increasingly dangerous and nefarious situations that seemed to touch every corner of the story. I liked what I read. So Something Wicked This Way Comes was the perfect October read.