Title: Faces of Beth

Author: Carver Pike

Release date: April 10, 2022

When the nominations for the 2022 Splatterpunk Awards were announced, I took a look at the list to see who had made it (and was surprised and elated to see my name on the list – yeah, yeah, humble brag!), for one specific reason – I wanted to see who I still needed to read that I’d not read yet. The first name on that list was Aron Beauregard, which I fixed by recently reading his nominated novel, The Playground. The second was Carver Pike. I connected with Carver a number of years back and have always loved seeing how passionate and supportive he is. I felt a bit like a d-bag that I hadn’t gotten around to reading any of his work yet, but after reading the synopsis, I was super intrigued.

What I liked: The story follows possibly one of the most caring main characters you’ll ever come across. Andrew is an orderly/assistant at a long-term mental health institution. While there, he fell in love with a patient who had checked herself in, Beth. Even with her multiple personalities, Andrew doesn’t care – he loves her and decides to consider the other personalities as extended family members. It takes a turn when one of those personalities appears to take a very malicious turn and ‘detaches’ itself from Beth physically.

Carver has simply done a phenomenal job with this novel. This reminded me of the books/movies I used to watch as a teen that really had me excited upon discovering. We get thoroughly fleshed out alternative personalities, so much so that when Andrew is dealing with each one individually, it doesn’t come across as him talking to his wife while she pretends to be a different version of herself. It also makes us feel and connect with each one, which means later on, when things get truly horrific, there is a LOT of emotional moments and big scenes that’ll make you root hard for that personality as well as Andrew, to make it out alive.

The ending is fantastic and we get a ton of events that not only give us answers about what happened, but also solidly show us/reaffirm to us just how much Andrew loves Beth and the lengths he is willing to go to save her and be with her.

What I didn’t like: I did find the ‘reveal’ of Beth and her personalities to be a very jarring moment early on. Even though I knew what the deal was with the book, it still felt like a hard shift.

Secondly, I wondered how this novel would’ve played out had it not gone with the religious events/background and focused more on just Gore and Andrew attempting to keep things in check with his life and with Beth and her personalities.

Why you should buy this: This novel rips along from page one and never really lets up. Masterfully crafted, with some really great characters, I found that I desperately wanted to get back to the book whenever I was away from it, which tells you a lot about how awesome it was.

Pike has really crafted a gem here, one that I think casts a wide net for horror readers and their interests, but never falters in his deliver. A phenomenal read.

5/5