Book Review #148: Clown in a Cornfield 3: The Church of Frendo by Adam Cesare

 

After facing Frendo for the second time, Quinn has had enough of being hunted. So she decides to take matters into her own hands to finally take down the Frendo followers once and for all.

I was looking forward to this book so much! Not only were the first two 5 stars, but the second book in particular was so great! So I was really looking forward to seeing how the series continued.

While I liked this book, unfortunately it wasn't as good as the first two.

But it started really well. Cesare tends to write really great prologues, and this one is no exception. It set up the story really well, built the right amount of tension and gave us a taste of things to come.

The tension is another thing that Cesare excels at. It really takes the story from thriller to horror and keeps you completely engaged.

This one removed a lot of the characters we loved from the first two books, and I'm always wary about character changes. For the most part the new characters were great, but there were a couple that I didn't really care about. And because of that, there ended up being quite a significant point of view that I didn't really care for. Which isn't to say that this side of the story wasn't interesting, but when reading it I was always itching to get back to the characters I actually liked.

The story is written really well. The characters and the world, now somewhat familiar despite the changes between books, feel real, and it is easy to become invested in them.

But I think ultimately this one felt a bit too different from the others.

For a start, the first two stories felt really grounded. They were small, we knew our victims well and we also knew our villains. This book takes us out of Kettle Springs and into the big wide world, where we know no one, including who we thought our main character was.

And because of this, it feels a lot less impactful than the first two. The first two stories really stayed with me when I finished the books, but this one hasn't stuck at all.

It also would have been nice, and probably would have felt a bit more impactful if the story followed the characters we had already built a connection with. I really feel that taking them away stalled a bit of my enjoyment and I can't see that it made the story any better.

I also have strongly mixed feelings about the ending. And while I didn't hate it, the more I think about it, the more I dislike it. I just wish Quinn's story could have concluded (if it has concluded) in a way that felt fitting to how much we love her and everything she went through in this trilogy.

Overall, I'll definitely be reading the next book because I do love Cesare's writing, but I'm going in slightly apprehensive because this one surprised me a lot, and not in the best way.

3.5/5