Carrie Boike’s Reviews > Mapping the Interior > Status Update

“When I was twelve years old, I mapped out the interior of our home.
Now, sitting across from my little brother, I’m sketching out a map of the human heart, I guess.
There’s more dark hallways than I knew.
Rooms I thought I’d never have to enter.
But I will.
For him, for Collin, I’ll walk in and pull the door shut behind me, never come back out.”
😳😳😳

Oh please please don’t tell me he’s about to do what I think he’s about to do. He has a dead son. Dino is still alive. The mother is dead. And they’re back at the remains of the old house. I know his grief for his son and regret is probably much more potent than it was for his father’s death. And now he doesn’t have as much to live for either.

“And then I’m on him, my knee to his chest, my hands to his face, to push it back, to push it under the surface.
It’s for leaving us. It’s for coming back.”
😭😭
Yeah anyone with a dead dad who carries even a little bit of resentment for him is gonna get torn apart by this book.

“There were just two people here in the shallows. Not three. Me and Dad. Me finally getting to see him as he was, as I’d always wanted to see him, as I’d always dreamed of seeing him. And then having to step forward, knee him hard enough in the face that a line of blood slings up behind and above him.”

It’s crazy that the reveal that Junior was inhabiting one of his dad’s friends in the PAST the night he died is crazy. He said it was always debated whether it was an accident or a murder. What’s also crazy is that it also reminds me a lot of that big reveal in the final season of Attack on Titan, that it was really Eren all along. Eren did it so the Eldians could survive, Junior’s doing it to save Dino .

Oop, in the last update I meant to say he hated to call it a dead BOLT, not a body. Easy to confuse, considering dead bodies are definitely involved here too 😅

I love how he can use context to make ordinary words so creepy. Like implying that the space underneath the living room might be called the dead room. Or that he hated to call it a dead body, keeping out his dead father. But the neighbors body disappearing and possibly being dragged under the house by said dead father’s spirit?? Hoo boy this is wild. & things are definitely not over yet.

The beginning of this book was so melancholy yet sweet in a relatable sort of way that I forgot Jones writes horror. But I remembered soon enough! I knew something was going to happen with those dogs when Junior said he’d been taunting them 🤦🏻‍♀️ I wonder if this apparition really is his dad or if it’s something else. What if it’s appearing as somebody he wants to see but it’s a trick.

“In death he had become what he never could in life.
And now he was back.
Or, he had been for a few steps.
My heart pounded in my chest with what I wanted to call fear but what I know now was actually hope.”
Yeah this little book is gonna kill me, isn’t it?

“I imagine that when you grow up in a cowboy place, then you’re all into saddles and boots and ropes. When you grow up in Indian country, the TV tells you how to be Indian. And it starts with bows and arrows and headbands. They’re the exciting part of your heritage. They’re also the thing you can always find at the gift shop.” God I love the way he writes.