This one does the opposite: Johnson seems, at times, almost squeamish about the blood and guts of the story. As the story continues, we see the innocence and human emotion being stripped away from these children. While it is based around a political/societal narrative of ‘ what if good people do horrible things,’ I can’t separate the overall plotline as being anything else than coming-of-age. It was brutal in its descriptions of what happened to her, and I felt like I somehow owed it to her to keep reading until the end. I skipped those pages when I read the book last year, knowing that I would come back to them after reading Johnson's novel.

Make no mistake, this book isn't for the reader who prefers lighter reading material, and while in it's most basic classification it seems to be a horror novel, the reality is that it's more of a psychological treatise on children and their interaction with the world. After I had finished less than half of the book, I felt I had already gotten as much out of it as I ever was going to get.Throughout the book, Barbara has a running inner dialogue between ‘Sexy Barbara’ and ‘Normal Barbara’ which Johnson used as a good talking point leading up to this pivotal scene. Perhaps it’s because this dude is an immigrant and looked down upon (it was the 70s), although I’m still not so sure. The writing is pretty good - I sped through this book and didn't want to put it down - but I just found it completely unbelievable.

Thanks to "Paperbacks From Hell" respawning interest in almost forgotten horror titles from the golden age, "Let's Go Play" is enjoying new readership and gaining some notoriety.In some ways, Let's Go Play at the Adams' reminded me of Lars Von Trier's Dogville or of the movie adaptation of Apt Pupil. Everyone knows this now, but a reader going into "Let's Go Play" completely blind back in 1974 would certainly come out with the shock of a lifetime. My own kids started screaming at each other while I am writing this review, both sounding like Bette Davis screeching at Joan Crawford. In 2020, Valancourt Books republished it in paperback format under its Paperbacks from Hell series, featuring its original mass-market paperback artwork, and including a new introduction by Grady Hendrix. But the likelihood of finding three other kids, ranging in age from 10-16, who are mostly fine with torturing someone to death, breaks my suspension of disbelief.

Downer Ending: The kids get away with it, and a random homeless person is found guilty of their crime. There was a case I read about a few years ago, which is quite a well known case in England, which disturbed me and has stayed with me. And so we are left with incredibly long chapters of pure cruelty and torture of a helpless woman with nothing to induce empathy or horror in the witnessing reader. The author himself didn’t achieve much in the way of literary notoriety while alive and it’s only been the last few years that this book jumped up another notch when included in “most sought after” lists. It spoke to Johnson’s sensibilities to keep the violence and the horrific acts to a bare minimum up until the end.Another reason to check out this book is Grady Hendrix’s introduction which is full of juicy tidbits about the novel’s origin and subsequent cult following.

Its plot focuses on a group of rural Maryland children who drug, incapacitate, and eventually torture the college student babysitter hired by their parents while they are away in Europe for two weeks. Barbara is hired to work as a babysitter and caretaker of the Adams’ house and their two children, Bobby and Cindy, while they spend a week away. For a while Cindy even tires of having complete freedom, and considers releasing Barbara out of boredom and because she genuinely likes the young woman.More than a terrifying horror story, Let's Go Play at the Adams' is a compelling psychological exercise of brooding insights and deadly implications. Peer Pressure Makes You Evil: Many of these kids, it is implied, wouldn't do things to Barbara on their own. He starts off as the implied leader of Freedom Five but once the game begins to intensify he quickly hands responsibility over to Dianne. I recently acquired a copy of ‘Let’s Go Play At the Adams’’ which was the lone release from author Mendal W. There’s nothing elaborate or ungrounded about any of it, and it’s one of the many details that reminds the reader these are, more or less, ordinary children.