Empty Smiles (Small Spaces #4)
Published August 9th 2022 by G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, Hardcover 256 pages
New York Times bestselling author Katherine thrills once again in the finale to the critically acclaimed, spook-tacular quartet that began with Small Spaces.
It’s been three months since Ollie made a daring deal with the smiling man to save those she loved, and then vanished without a trace. The smiling man promised Coco, Brian and Phil, that they’d have a chance to save her, but as time goes by, they begin to worry that the smiling man has lied to them and Ollie is gone forever. But finally, a clue surfaces. A boy who went missing at a nearby traveling carnival appears at the town swimming hole, terrified and rambling. He tells anyone who'll listen about the mysterious man who took him. How the man agreed to let him go on one condition: that he deliver a message. Play if you dare.
Game on! The smiling man has finally made his move. Now it’s Coco, Brian, and Phil’s turn to make theirs. And they know just where to start. The traveling carnival is coming to Evansburg.
Meanwhile, Ollie is trapped in the world behind the mist, learning the horrifying secrets of the smiling man's carnival, trying everything to help her friends find her. Brian, Coco and Phil will risk everything to rescue Ollie—but they all soon realize this game is much more dangerous than the ones before. This time the smiling man is playing for keeps.
The summer nights are short, and Ollie, Coco, Brian, and Phil have only until sunrise to beat him once and for all—or it’s game over for everyone.
User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
This was my most disappointing read of the year so far...I LOVED this series so much and I really enjoyed the first 75% of this book but the ending felt rushed and left so many things unanswered and unexplored for me to be satisfied with the conclusion. I felt like she was in a rush to get it in to her editor and didn't write the ending that we deserved. This could have been longer and gone into the background of The Smiling Man more or given us some kind of closure...super bummed but overall this is a creepy and entertaining middle grade series.
Rating: really liked it
honestly, the worst cover of the series.
Rating: really liked it
#1) Small Spaces ★★★★☆
#2) Dead Voices ★★★★☆
#3) Dark Waters ★★★★★
this cover is genuinely terrifying 😰
Blog • Trigger Warning Database • StoryGraph
Rating: really liked it
2.5 ⭐️
I wanted to love this so badly. I absolutely adore Katherine Arden's writing and have loved every book in this series, but this one just didn't do it for me. I needed so much more from it.
I was so excited about the fact that we were getting to see more of the smiling man, especially since it sounded like there was a man behind the monster, yet we never really got answers in the end. Why did he want Ollie to stay at the Carnival so badly? Why did he seem worried about her, or somewhat happy when our main characters managed to get the gate open? Why was he so afraid of the funhouse? What would he have seen in those mirrors? There are so many questions left unanswered, and I feel like it would've made the book better if we had gotten the answers we were looking for.
The ending falls flat. I have been creating an attachment to these characters for 3 books and yet felt NOTHING when they managed to get themselves to safety and reunite with the people they loved, which saddens me to no end.
Let me also mention that for such high stakes, the problem was easily solved, which threw me off. Our characters did struggle with running from the clowns, but after that everything else was so easy. Finding the keys. Leaving. And why did the smiling man let them leave so easily? I am still struggling to understand this.
As I've mentioned before, I love Katherine Arden's work and felt that maybe I got my hopes a bit to high because of that. I think that's also why I can't bring myself to give this book a 2 star rating.
Rating: really liked it
Book one was SOLID.
Book two was AMAZING.
Book three was as creative as the last two.
Book four... it felt rushed. VERY rushed. It could have used another 50 pages of content.
Overall, I think it's a strong series for the targeted age group, and I could see myself rereading the first two books eventually, probably not the last two.
Rating: really liked it
I am baffled by the ending of this????
Up until the last 5? Pages - I was ready to call this the 2nd best instalment in the series (Small Spaces being first obviously)
It built up to such an intense climax, it introduced so many new ideas and dropped so many little clues, and then out of literally nowhere, it just resolved everything within 2 pages, with no explanation, and wrapped the whole thing up.
It was lacking emotion, it was rushed and honestly, the last few pages were kind of poorly written (waaaay more cheesy and juvenile than the rest of the series)
I actually even double checked, because I thought it was a 4 book series, to see if I was wrong - surely they wouldn’t drop all those open ideas and leave them hanging unresolved? But nope, that was indeed the finale. It honestly read like the author herself had gotten as far as the final pages before getting kidnapped by clowns herself and having to wrap up the ending with minutes to spare.
Super disappointed as I LOVE this series and again, up until the ending, this was easily one of the better instalments- it also felt like she knew her younger readers had grown a few years since the first book came out, and she was leaning into more mature writing and scarier horror sequences throughout the book, so it was even more of a bummer to have the final pages revert back to the most basic, cheesy, stereotypical middle grade vibes.
Really let down by this one :( but still giving it 3 stars because up until those final pages I did love it.
Rating: really liked it
It seemed like the ending was rushed. It was disappointing.
Rating: really liked it
Katherine Arden is about to make all my dreams come true, finishing her horror series with a carnival story.
Rating: really liked it
Y'all... I love this series. I waited for this book for months. I had it on my calendar and looked forward to it the whole time. And then, it's a good book for three-quarters of a book, and then it just... ends. Literally. I had a quarter of the book left, only to find that an entire. quarter. of this printed book is excerpts from the other three books, as like a "sneak preview" but "see where it all started." There is no closure. There is no explanation. There is no followup for anything that happened in this book. They get started on the game, and then... they win and go home and it's fine, in the space of a few pages. There is no final drama. There is no final anything. There is only three-quarters of a book. I don't know what happened in the background here to make this be the final product, but I'm honestly crushed. I was looking forward to it
so much and then it's not like I finally got to read the end and it sucked, it's like I never got to read the end at all.
Rating: really liked it
This cover legitimately terrifies me.........
Rating: really liked it
~ I am UPSET ~
Can I update June’s answer for most disappointing read of the year? Because this would be it.
Why, do you ask? Well, I will tell you that I have been looking forward to this book even before it was announced. The first book in the series, Small Spaces, was one of my favorite books of 2020, and I was so shocked that I liked it because it’s a horror (albeit a middle grade horror). I recommended it to everyone.
And then I got MORE excited because it was part of a seasons quartet, where each of the four books in the series was based on a season. Obviously, the fall one was my favorite, but the winter one was still good! And then spring happened and it just felt like a setup for book 4. So I sat there, not so patiently waiting to see how everything would tie together.
And then I sat on my couch, signed copy in hand, and read the summer conclusion. And the first 80% of it was amazing. Even scarier than the previous ones. Felt like everything was coming together.
And then when it did, it came together in 3 pages. Literally, it’s like the printer ran out of paper and she had to fit the story on 2 sheets of paper. WAY too rushed. Which is the biggest shame ever because all the building blocks were there! Super lovable characters! Spooky premise! Lots of unsolved mysteries from the first three books. And then…just nothing. Nothing.
Truly, I don’t even know how to rate this book. For awhile, I really thought it might be 5 stars. And then the end happened. Can I give it both 5 stars and 1 star at the same time without it averaging to 3? Because it’s not 3. 3 is forgettable. I won’t forget this.
Rating: really liked it
Welp.
I didn't think I was afraid of clowns. I DAMN WELL AM NOW. Holy shit.
As I've delved further and further into the realm of horror, I've remained firmly convinced that some middle grade novels are actually the most terrifying (not necessarily the most
horrific, but definitely the most
terrifying) that I have read, and Katherine Arden's Small Spaces and its sequels remained at the top of that list. Empty Smiles, as the series closer--and as a book that riffs on clowns and creepy dolls--does not disappoint as a finale.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be turning all my lights on, thanks.
Rating: really liked it
I'm well past my mid-twenties and yet I nearly shat myself reading this in the dark because the clowns were so creepy
Rating: really liked it
I love that Katherine Arden gets to the heart of what really scares kids, and doesn't shy away from those darker elements. It would've made me feel seen and heard as a kid, and I really respect it. This was delightfully frightening, as always, but the ending was SO abrupt.
Maybe it's because the hardcover version of this book has 50+ pages of extras at the back (which feels like too much), but by the time I hit the end of the book I was like, "What?? That's it??" For the last book in a beloved series, it was a pretty big letdown. There's no big final showdown with the smiling man, no surprise at the end, no real peril at all. And when they get home, there's about a page tying everything up. I was gonna give this book four stars, but writing it out now, I'm giving it 3. The quick end is a huge, huge bummer.
Rating: really liked it
I am a big Katherine Arden fan, so I had high expectations for this book. Sadly, the ending felt rushed and incomplete. The copy I read had an excerpt from Small Spaces in it and I didn't realize that fact. Here I was completely absorbed in what was happening, thinking that things seemed to be wrapping up quickly when it felt that I had about 50 pages left, and all of a sudden it was over. That is when I found the excerpt and my disappointment settled in. The plot ended with a simple fix and the Smiling Man just let them walk away? What? I have to wonder if that was how the end was meant to be written.
