After customers inform him that the video cassettes they are returning have something “strange,” a curious, Jeremy takes one home to watch. The book’s first narrative line centers on Jeremy, a teenage video store clerk trying to reconcile his tragic recent past with a plan for the future in ‘90s rural Iowa. This is an unfortunate choice by John Darnielle, as the book rapidly devolves into a jumbled mess of half-baked ideas, incomplete character development and unsatisfying resolutions to its too-numerous storylines. Subsequently, it abandons its rich atmosphere, promising plot and charismatic cast, complicating the taut thrills of its first hundred pages in search of a broader tale about family and rural life. Universal Harvester carefully constructs a foreboding setting, a clever narrative device and a coterie of likable characters in its first act.
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