Clown in a Cornfield, written by Adam Cesare, is a young adult novel for people who love horror, clowns, and the occasional jump scare. This novel stars Quinn Maybrook, a senior in high school, who just moved from Philadelphia to a small town, Kettle Springs, MO. The town seems nice and quiet, until Quinn and her new friends end up having to survive a killer clown that is terrorizing Kettle Springs. The author does a great job at creating a main character that is likeable, that some people might be able to relate to and feel sympathy towards, while he made other characters not as likeable but still. He also does a good job of creating a town with some mystery behind it that makes the reader more curious about the town’s history like what has happened, why did these things happen, and what is going to happen because of the terrors that occurred. Although horror may not be everyone’s favorite genre to read, whether it’s because they don’t like being scared, cliché tropes, or the forever common nausea, Adam Cesare finds a way to combine all of those in a way that is easy to understand and read. That doesn’t mean the book has a lack of blood, gore, and an overall horror feel to it, it has plenty of that, Adam Cesare was just able to write it to where most readers would be able to enjoy it.
Is this book perfect? No. Some readers talked about how the characters didn’t have much depth, or that they didn’t develop in any way. The main characters in this book started off as teenagers who like to party and pull pranks on old people, and at the end they still continue to do the same antics. Another weakness is the motivation behind the killer clown. A lot of people think it’s too unrealistic that a town full of an older generation would kill the teenagers because they’re on their phones during class and partying.
Despite its flaws, Clown in a Cornfield has many great aspects to it that make it a good horror novel to read. From the unsettling town and partying teenagers to the killer clowns that ultimately succeed in their mission; Clown in a Cornfield is a great novel that anyone who’s into horror should read.
