The Imaginary Corpse is one of the September releases that I saw everyone raving about and couldn’t wait to get my hands on. And then I did, and I’m on the hype train, front seat and all. Everything about this book is my sort of thing, though that can be a very specific thing and I’ll grant you it might not be everybody’s thing. I can do words me. What I’m trying to say is that, I know there must be something to criticize about this book, but I might be too in love to see it. 

This book is a like a warm hug, only sometimes you’re getting that hug as you’re hiding in a dark basement and you hear heavy footsteps on the stairs. I was not prepared for the dark themes, which I think were handled very well. At the end it did leave me uplifted, but in the process it gave me all the feels, and a lot of them weren’t happy ones. 

At first I was a bit unsure, imaginary friends, a stuffed dinosaur toy detective, even the tone in a way, was this a children’s book? But then there was stuff like PTSD and serial killers. Though in a way it is like a children’s book for adults. I felt like it really set out to remind us that goodness exists, that problems can be faced, that you can get back up after failing. 

The characters are shaped by ideas and ideals, they’re created by people based on their needs, they help make sense of a confusing world, protect people, love to cheer people up, or represent stereotypical antagonists to pit heroes against. As far as I can tell they all come to the Stillreal after  a traumatic event and have different ways of dealing with that. I found it very interesting how they break down when faced with something that goes against their very nature, and how they pull themselves back up. 

Tippy is the cutest person. He elicits all the awws. He is so kind, and he tries so hard to be considerate of other people’s feelings. And he only wants to help people, because that’s one way he can make sense of the world. 

I thought the worldbuilding was interesting, a place on the border of imagination and reality, where discarded ideas go when they’re still too real to fade away but their creators can’t keep them anymore. They’re all a little bit broken, and have to fit around each other to find ways to live with the knowledge that they’re no longer needed, or that they failed. And I liked how real world horror seeped into this imaginary world together with the main villain. There is a certain cause and effect relation with the villain that isn’t exactly clear, it didn’t bug me when I read it but someone pointed it out after and I see it being a little off.

The story is essentially a detective story, putting together clues to find out the truth and catch the bad guy. I liked how information was revealed, forgotten and remembered at the right times, I thought it was satisfying as mysteries go. 

I’m not the first one to say it, but I really think this is the sort of book I didn’t know I needed, but left me feeling so much better. 

Bingo squares: released in 2019 (hard mode), local to Northern California, small scale