“I’m sorry. But you’re hurting my friend.”
What’s the story?
In Utero starts with a brief setup of a large nuclear-looking explosion in the middle of an Australian city then jumps to 12 years later where we meet our (almost) 12-year-old protagonist Hailey. While the cause remains something of a mystery people have moved on and Hailey is being dropped off at an abandoned mall, now housing a daycare, near the site of the explosion. Hailey is much older than most of the other members of the daycare and since the setting is a whole mall it’s pretty easy for her to slip off unnoticed. Which allows her to meet Jen. Jen appears to be an older teenager, but it quickly becomes apparent that Jen isn’t really human as she displays unusual powers while giving Hailey a tour of the decrepit mall. This culminates in Jen introducing Hailey to her real self, which is a car-sized egg. Jen invites Hailey into a sort of mental space, where a lot of the book takes place, and we learn more of Jen’s backstory and that she is not the only strange thing hiding out in the abandoned mall.
There’s also a second plot line about soldiers cleaning up a mysterious biological substance in the mall that mostly serves to tell us what’s going on outside the inner world that Jen inhabits. This being a horror book there is some occasional dismemberment and bizarre monster action that drives the plot along and gets us to the ultimate conclusion of the story. The cover above makes for a very good preview of the distinctive coloration that is used throughout the book. There’s black and white throughout the panels, but there is usually the inclusion of either red or blue in a given panel. It’s a very specific and well-thought-out use of color that I haven’t really seen before. Monsters look cool/scary and characters facial expressions are easy to parse.
Who do we see in this book?
Australians, I presume. Outside the appearance of the spelling mum, there’s nothing that makes this book especially Australian that I picked up on. Hailey and her family have Asian features and secondary characters appear to be either Asian or white. Jen’s appearance should technically be classified as egg. Well, for some of the book. The book has absolutely no romantic component so the orientation of any characters is neither important nor necessary to know.
How are the friendships?
🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚
5 out of 5 eggs.
What you thought this was going to be rated on the scaries scale? Horror is a funny genre because it is almost never actually about the horror. Sci-fi is about the spaceship battles, fantasy is about the magic spells, romance is about the relationships and so on. Obviously, many things are more than one thing, but horror is almost always a metaphor. Horror is about family relationships, it’s about trauma, it’s about societal expectations, it’s about trust, it’s about love and so much more. This horror book is actually a friendship book and it excels at being that. It’s a quick read, but it doesn’t feel like the friendship grows too fast, instead, it is told in the exact right amount of pages and dialogue. Some things are left in the dark and the ending has the option for further development, but the story is complete enough without over-explaining things. A great example of show, don’t tell. It’s easy to imagine this story is just one in a larger universe.
