This is the kind of horror novel an AI would write. It’s a collection of cliche scenes stitched together by a few oblique references to “the 90’s” that are so hackneyed and forced I’m not entirely convinced this wasn’t written by someone born after 9/11. Scenes are dragged out for intolerable lengths as characters repeat loops until Mr Van Wey hit whatever word count he was aiming for before advancing. I suspect this was an attempt to “build tension” but instead it comes across as a bit of video game dialogue you keep trying to skip. I lost count of how often I said “get to the point!” out loud in frustration. There is a reason Lovecraft stuck to short stories and it is a lesson I wish the author would have learned. The writer is spared from being the worst part of this abomination by the narrator whose accent work flirts with being openly disrespectful so often that it becomes completely distracting and obnoxious. Everything about this has been done a thousand times before and nearly always better.