Night of the Pumpkin God by Chris Kosarich

After reading Mister Jack, I was looking forward to learning more about him and hopefully seeing him finally at rest. I half expected Josie to show up in some form as well, but Night of the Pumpkin God kind of took a left turn.

Tully’s character, by all rights, should have been a knockout and a huge focal point for this as he recovered from the events of Mister Jack. He was hurting, mad at the world, and held a huge grudge for what happened to him. I’d have liked to see Kosarich lean into that and explore his recovery (or lack thereof), but instead, Tully was turned into a stoner, wannabe rapist killer. His progression into this “Pumpkin God” needed to be developed more for me to entirely believe it.

The female characters mainly seemed to exist as accessories to the story. Kendra was the typical knockout commitment-phobic secretary rebound. Maddie was the naive pretty girl used as a convenient forward device. Misty waffled between justified desires for revenge and wanting to stop things with no regard to her situation/love for Josie. Tully’s mom was the classic overly-relgious woman with a secret sinful side. I wish that the female characters would’ve been more of a fixture.

Perhaps the most egregious is that I still don’t know if Jack is at peace. It was the one thing that I was most interested in learning, and I never got my answer. This left me with a lot of disappointment at the end of what could have been a really cool experience.