Black Out The Stars by Christopher Bond is a dark and twisted tale of generational horrors, spilling from one old man’s lips as fast as the water drains from the pond on his property.
Content Warnings: death of a parent, animal death, child abuse, domestic violence, and more.
Let’s dive in!
My Thoughts on Black Out The Stars by Christopher Bond –
After receiving a call from his uncle, the narrator travels to help prepare the place for sale. The main task? Draining the pond. But as the water recedes, so do the filters on the stories his uncle has kept buried. One by one, the tales surface… disturbing, raw, and impossible to forget.
As the pond grows shallower, the stories grow darker. What begins as simple reminiscing spirals into a deeply unsettling journey none of us could be prepared for.
My goodness. Have you ever read a book that made you feel absolutely awful, but in the best possible way? The kind you can’t stop reading because you need to know how it ends? That’s this book.
Whenever I picked it up, I felt a physical weight in my chest. Even now, after finishing it—and taking a break—I still feel that heaviness.
I’m obsessed with the format. I love a book that weaves stories within stories, and the pacing here is masterful. Each tale slowly ramps up the horror, pulling you in deeper.
My Favorite Passages from Black Out The Stars –
Being with those who have known you since you were a child has a way of making you feel like you never grew up, like you’re still that little kid they knew, no matter how many years you have under your belt. But death, the death of those close to you, it has a way of aging you, of changing you. It takes a piece of that innocence and it hardens it.
He gazed out toward the pond, but I could tell he wasn’t seeing it. He stared through it, through a fog, back through the tangled webs of years gone by.
Dad hardly ever brought up Grandpa at all, and when he did, it was mostly small anecdotes, little offhand remarks thrown out like random slashes of a very small paintbrush, just enough to add a little color, never enough to complete a full picture.
I held my breath, part of me knowing what he was going to say next, the other part not quite sure I was ready to hear it.
Enlightenment is always a thing to be feared by the ignorant.
My Final Thoughts on Black Out The Stars –
If you’re drawn to stories that leave you haunted long after the final page, then this is a must-read. It’s unsettling, it’s beautifully told, and it’s unlike anything else I’ve read in a long time. Just be warned: once you start, you won’t be able to look away… even when you desperately want to.
Thanks for reading!
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