Black Mouth

By: Ronald Malfi

Narrated by: Joe Hempel

Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

Perfect for fans of Stephen King's IT, a group of friends return to their hometown to confront a nightmare they first stumbled on as teenagers in this mesmerizing odyssey of terror.

An atmospheric, haunting thriller, full of memorable characters and sublime terror, from the author of Come with Me

For nearly two decades, Jamie Warren has been running from darkness. He's haunted by a traumatic childhood and the guilt at having disappeared from his disabled brother's life. But then a series of unusual events reunites him with his estranged brother and their childhood friends, and none of them can deny the sense of fate that has seemingly drawn them back together.

Nor can they deny the memories of that summer, so long ago—the strange magic taught to them by an even stranger man, and the terrible act that has followed them all into adulthood. In the light of new danger, they must confront their past by facing their futures, and hunting down a man who may very well be a monster.

©2022 Ronald Malfi (P)2022 Tantor

Likely my favorite Malfi of them all

Fantastic narration and a damn good storyline. Audible is making me lengthen my review so now I’m just rambling.

Excellent!

This book was phenomenal! Malfi is quickly becoming one of my top favorite authors. Dennis was one of my favorite characters. I just loved this story so much.

Power of Evil

Childhood memories can haunt us forever and abusers and the supernatural can have a negative impact on our future... this is such a story.

Good book.

Other than an aggressively large amount of swear words, this was a really good book. I enjoyed it.

Decent but derivative horror

This book was pretty solid, but I have to dock it a bit: the publisher's blurb compares it to Stephen King, and it's not lying. It's most similar to IT, but the whole thing is basically constructed from Stephen King tropes, from the whole structure of the story all the way down to the central character frequently missing about addiction and rehab. I enjoyed it overall, but I don't feel like I can rate it as highly as I would in a vacuum because it feels like it was largely constructed from bits and pieces of things I've read before. It's an enjoyable enough read, though, with that disclaimer out of the way.

It was ok, definitely not as good as IT

The story was strong but the ending wasn’t. A review said if you liked IT you would like this book, it doesn’t hold a candle to IT.

Moves a bit slowly

I think it's a bit of a stretch to compare this story to King's "IT". The story doesn't have the rich history and back of IT nor does it have the sheer horror of IT. Had I read the review comparing this book to Stephen King's IT. I may have enjoyed it a bit more. over all it's not a bad story, just not what I expected.

Instant Malfi Fan

Great story and great writing! I’ve never read Malfi’s work but I am now a super fan. On to the next!

Good storyline

Generally enjoyed it. Only disliked little things not worth mentioning, but am only to explain why the 4 star reviews. The narrator is excellent.

One more minute.

This was my mantra listening to this book, and like the narrator battling alcoholism, I often succumbed to listening to this like an audio Netflix show. I binged the hell out of this

Malfi’s story is very interesting and while it reminded me of It like so may others, it also reminded me of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, but set in a contemporary setting. Malfi’s writing is engaging and created clear images in my mind.

I also found Hempel to be a fantastic narrator and very easy to listen to. The audio of this book is first class.

Fantastic story. Fantastic narration.