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Empty Smiles (2022) by Katherine Arden ⭐⭐
I read the kindle version.
We’re finally at the end of our Small Spaces journey, and it’s been a wild ride! Each book is very different, and this one is no exception.
At the end of the last book, Ollie had made a deal with the Smiling Man so that her father could be saved from dying from his snakebite. So now Ollie is trapped in the Smiling Man’s carnival and her friends have to find out how to save her. Dodging clowns and armed with water guns, Coco and Brian must save their friends, family, and the rest of the world in a race against time.
You know what? I actually didn’t like this edition to the series. It was a weak close, a rushed ending, and some of this wrap-up didn’t make sense. I really enjoyed reading Katherine Arden’s series, but this one raised a few questions.
First of all, at the end of Dark Waters, Ollie’s father didn’t react to her disappearance. It made it sound like he wasn’t going to remember Ollie at all, not just the incident with the snakebite. In Empty Smiles, he does remember Ollie, he just thinks she’s dead. How does he think she died? At the end of Dark Waters, Brian, Coco, and Phil react to her jumping into the lake, but Ollie’s father seems to have totally forgotten Ollie even existed, telling the kids that they’re just tired and not to worry, because they’re on their way home.
Why exactly is there a carnival that is run by the Smiling Man? That’s not explained, either, because this has never been mentioned before in any of the books. In the end of Empty Smiles, no one except for the kids remember anything at all that has happened to them, and we’re supposed to expect that they were going to go back to their daily lives no harm, no foul? This is the author’s art, the author’s story, but I almost wish she’d wrapped the series up at the end of Dark Waters. This one seemed so out of place, too cartoony for me.
The story even tries to make us think that the Smiling Man has to do these things somehow. Like he doesn’t want to, but he has to do it for some reason. Yeah, they go there. Are we really supposed to feel bad or sorry for the Smiling Man? After four books of the Smiling Man messing with these kids, we’re supposed to believe that he has human feeling and that he is forced to torture children mentally? Sorry, Charlie. Not buying it.
The clowns are creepy, yes. They have an Art the Clown type feel. But throughout the entire series, I feel like there are so many great half-ideas that Ms. Arden could have explored more deeply.
The one overarching thing that I really loved about this series, though, was the never-ending love between friends. In every one of the books, I teared up in parts, even just a little.
I’m giving Empty Smiles two stars, but I’d still recommend the entire series to those who love to read, especially 5th or 6th graders. I think they will find them spooky and entertaining. My favorite of all was Dead Voices.
