What a waste of a good idea! The writing of The Bright Lands was so poor. Certain phrases were used over and over again the most glaring was “ridged stomach” and twice on one page the phrase “Joel wondered what the odds were that…” appeared. The word spry was also misused in the description of a man who had grown “narrow-shouldered and paunchy” in contrast to a character who stayed more fit and active.

The book switched perspectives between characters but every single character man, woman, and child who appeared in the book sounded the same and used the same type of flat, oddly crude phrasing in their speech and thoughts. They were described as having very different personalities and backgrounds but everyone acted and sounded identical. There was no reason plot-wise for this. It was hard to know which character you were reading about until they’d mention a missing brother, working a cash register, driving a patrol car.

A shame because the concept was fairly clever—take a slightly more socially aware Friday Night Lights and make it spooky—but this had some of the poorest writing I’ve ever read.