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This is Scott Cawthon's first in a planned series of Young Adult novels re-imagining the events of the Five Nights at Freddy's lore. The story focuses on Charlie, daughter of the man behind the creation of the franchise's beloved animatronics. She is returning to Hurricane, Utah, site of the now-closed Freddy Fazbear's Pizza restaurant, along with several friends for a scholarship dedication in the memory of their friend Michael; one of the five children who were murdered at Freddy Fazbear's during a fateful day ten years prior. The group of friends realize the closed restaurant was never truly erased from existence, and curiosity compells them to return to it. Charlie unearths nefarious truths as she must face her own past and memories in order to solve a ten year old crime--and save her friends' very lives, as the supernatural elements of the accursed restaurant are proven to be very, very real. As a long time fan of the franchise, I picked up this book curious to see what Scott had in mind when he decided to, in another canon, give the franchise some history that included names, dates, events, and so on. Granted I don't know exactly what ideas were his and which were not, due to the addition of his co-writer Kira, but both of them do manage to create a compelling story. Charlie is a character still dealing with quite a bit of tragedy in her life that's elaborated on as the story proceeds. We spend the most time with her and her childhood friend John as Charlie unearths painful but very engaging and scary memories. Several key characters in the games are given official names and a history, including two of the child victims and the actual murderer. There are unfortunately several cons in both the book, and the book's formatting. The formatting itself is very sloppy, making the book stretch out to around 500 pages. This price of this book is usually ranging from 15-20 dollars. For a "reimagining" book with huge spaces between the lines, several typos, and grammatical errors, that's asking a bit much. Some cons in the story include a great deal of padding, some characters acting in ways that don't make any sense for their established personality, and as others have pointed out, there isn't much focus on the animatronics themselves until we're nearing the end of the story (though I think it was worth the wait for such a good ending). Some of the characters make some atrocious decisions, not counting the obvious choice to sneak into an abandoned restaurant. Without that we'd have no story. But while there's some logic behind their first two visits, there is no reason for the third. They have NO reason to enter Freddy's a third time, and during the second visit their increasingly poor choices lead to the true danger presented in the book. Charlie herself is presented as a demure character who doesn't enjoy rocking the boat even if she disagrees with something. But her friends continue to put themselves in dangerous situations at Freddy's, despite all of them still being affected by the horrible events ten years prior. Nobody who's gone through that would have taken their eyes off of the character Dave (who by the way was one of the most intesting parts of the lore). But the main characters aren't the only ones who seem to enjoy ignoring the obvious. Carlton's father, police chief Clay, is by far the biggest idiot in the book. He makes a horrible decision that could cost him his son's life; after the book establishes a history for Clay and his family that screams that Clay, of all people, would never be one to make such an awful decision. (Though to be fair, his wife Betty calls him out on how ludicrous it is.) There are some strange continuity errors within the story itself, too. For example, Charlie is seemingly badly injured near the end of the book, but then she and the other characters write off the injury and deem it non-hospital worthy. The injury was described in graphic detail only pages prior, so that was very confusing. One does not simply walk off a limp-inducing injury, literally! I hope Scott and Kira will invest in a professional editor for their next few books. If they do trim the fat by fixing the format (making it worth the high asking price), staying consistent with the writing, and continue to deliver interesting content, I may be able to give them five stars for the next book. I am very curious for the next additions to this series due to Silver Eyes' ending; which had a note of finality for Charlie's role. I didn't see much room for her involvement in sequels after this. Perhaps the next book will be released after the upcoming game "FNAF: Sister Location" to flesh the secrets of that particular game out a bit more; as it was established in the book that this book canon is tied to the new game coming this fall. I enjoyed myself with this book despite its problems, and I think any fan of the FNAF franchise will be able to have themselves a good read too. :)Read full review
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While I am an extremely avid fan of fnaf, I found this book a tad underwhelming. It focuses too much on one character, and not enough on the overall backstory, and when it does introduce the fnaf animatronics, they aren't nearly the ghastly beings we'be come to know and love. The ending was also very abrubt and unsatisfactory. So, while I liked the book, and will probably recommend it, I only give it four out of five stars.
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I purchased this book for my 12 year old nephew. He loved this book. I then read the book myself. It is a fantastic read. Scott Cawthon should write other books. It was a fascinating read and I VERYmuch enjoyed it.
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Nice book my grandson loves it.
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This story is not about the original games, though. If you read this story as an very original story, without searching for any clues or evidents or something about the original games, It's worth enough.
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