No Home for Boys

All Things Lead to the End #5

by Edward Lorn

All things lead to the End. And this is the end.

BAY'S END, THE SOUND OF BROKEN RIBS, THE BEDDING OF BOYS, and EVERYTHING IS HORRIBLE NOW are required reading before reading this novel.

Genres: Horror

238 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

Edward Lorn (E. to most) is a reader, writer, and content creator. He's been writing for fun since the age of six, and writing professionally since 2011. He can be found haunting the halls of Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

E. lives in Alabama with his wife and two children. He is currently working on his next novel.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Eric Penderecki torches his science class with a papier mache volcanco full of thermite, he winds up in the Bay's End Home for Boys, run by famous writer Trey Franklin. Little does he know Trey's reasons for running the home...

Edward Lorn hit me up to read this a while back. I'm down with the Lorn and have called him the future of horror on several occasions. Anyway, I was between books and decided to read this. I wolfed it down in two sittings.

No Home For Boys is some fucked up, timey-wimey cosmic horror, the seeds Lorn planted in all the books in the Bay's End universe finally bearing fruit. It is one hell of a ride.

Parts of it are auto-biographical, I expect. Trey went through some of the same meat grinders as old Easy E from what I've gleaned from Ed over the last few years. Lorn probably hasn't lived several lifetimes, although I don't know him THAT well.

A wise burnout once said "Time is a flat circle." In the case of the Lorniverse, time is a pretzel. Humanity inhabits the infinity shaped piece and the loop below is home to all sorts of nastiness. No Home For Boys explores that notion and also tackles things like religion, the afterlife, time, the universe, and everything. And it will also creep the begeezsus out of you if you're not careful.

I don't want to give too much away. Suffice to stay, Ed stuck the standing. His writing has matured quite a bit in the however many years I've been reading him. A story like this takes a lot of confidence to attempt. Admittedly, I was in the dark for parts of it, given the pretzel-y nature of things but I'd say he pulled it off.

Now that the book is (probably) closed on the Bay's End universe, I'll be interested to see what Edward Lorn does next. Four out of five stars.

[Karl]

This hardcover is numbered 14 of 44 copies produced and is signed by Edward Lorn.

The book also contains the stories:

217 - "A Sound that Haunts" (2018)
227 - "Popsicle" (2018)

[lee_readsbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

What starts out as a Home For Boys built on the land that was once known as the Westerns soon turns into a auto-biographical style story by Trey Franklin, whom if you have followed the Bay's End saga will know Trey was narrator and protagonist in the first book "Bay's End".

This book was almost like the last little piece of the puzzle in all the other stories. We were reunited with characters from Bay's End, The Sound Of Broken Ribs, Joy and Pain from Cruelty were major players too.

Trey Franklin has had a pretty screwed up life which I won't go into but just like all the books in this experience, all things lead to Bay's End...

I highly recommend all of the books - Bay's End, Fog Warning, The Sound Of Broken Ribs, Cruelty, The Bedding Of Boys, Everything Is Horrible Now, and this gem. I can't wait to see what is next install for Edward Lorn.

[Thomas Stroemquist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me start by saying that if you read the other Bay’s End books, you must of course read this one. If you haven’t, you must read them all!

So this is the end of the End, tying up the happenings in 4 books that are firmly planted (at slightly different levels) on my favourite-shelf. So what’s with the measly 3-stars then you ask? Well, I did have some issues with it. First, time is out of whack - this is an integral part, but for some reason it threw me this time. It worries me a little, because I’m usually in tune with this authors voice and now I find myself slightly tone deaf. That’s my way of saying that it might be me. I will be re-reading the book series this summer (hit me up anyone wanting to buddy up) and I will tell you if things got clearer.

Large sequences in this was great of course and revisiting the characters of the End will never be dull. I did find the retelling of the preceding 4 books sometimes did not add a lot and I never got into the narrators sometimes ‘conversational’ tone. In these cases, I think it was the book, not me. Don’t take my word for it though (at least not until my re-read and review update).

[Aaron Nash · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last in the bays end saga and a fitting goodbye. This is Edward Lorns multiverse, and here we have many of the characters from his previous novels coming together for the end game. It helped that I read the anthology edition on my kindle so that I could refresh my memory with some of the characters that I couldn't remember. This is a book for the fans only. I really wouldn't read it if I hadn't read the rest of the series. You won't understand it. Hell, I can't even say that I fully understood it. What I can say that it's a cool, fitting end, and like the rest of the series, it's fucking nuts.

[Taylor J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

HOLY FUCK that ending twist. I'm so sorry i doubted you e

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad to be finished with this amazing series. Will read again soon.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last piece of the puzzle that is Bay’s End! It was a good journey but it had to end! All things lead to the End....

[Laertes · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to admit: I prefer E. as an author when he writes realistic scenes. The more cosmic he becomes, the less I can follow.

That's why I love 'Bay's End' and 'The Sound of Broken Ribs' (the latter including only so much cosmic horror that it's working for me), that's why I enjoyed 'Hope for the Wicked' and 'Pennies for the Damned' so much, and that's why I found 'Life After Dane' to be strong only for the parts that focus on the protagonist's upringing.

Don't get me wrong: I love horror! But for me, the most important thing is a story I can follow without taking hallucinogenic drugs.

This book, unfortunately, is not only a permanent stream of repetitive musings about cosmic realms - it's also trying to tie together all the storylines of the previous four novels. Since at least the first two and for the most part also the third ('The Bedding of Boys') are grounded in reality, it's hard for me to accept that all of them are basically only pieces of a big cosmic puzzle.

So, as sad as it is for me, I have to admit that this book, despite some strong parts here and there, didn't work for me at all. The images Lorn creates are sometimes interesting. But (again: for me) there is no real story, no plot, not tension... just a big, convoluted mess of ideas, brought together by... well, I don't know.

Finishing this one was hard work for me.

[Rose 'I Have Too Many Books To Read And No More Room' Barrientos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unless you've read Lorn's other Bay's End books, you will be confused. I recommend getting the Kindle Omibus so that you can go back and forth to other stories.

This was another great one, a little confusing at times but I really liked it.