A review of ‘The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek’, the debut novel from Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. Does it work as well for newcomers as well as it does for fans of Good Mythical Morning? How dark is it?
Now, while I am a fan of these guys, I am also a legit critic and I’ll be sharing my genuine opinions on ‘The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek’. I will be refraining from spoilers, so if you haven’t read it yet, no worries, you’re safe here.
Their debut novel coming out at this time was especially intriguing to me since I’m preparing to release my own debut novel in a couple of months.
It’s no secret that the main characters in the ‘Lost Causes of Bleak Creek’ are based on Rhett and Link themselves. The book pulls a lot from their childhoods and this ends up being one of the novel’s greatest strengths. The story is full of specificity and little idiosyncrasies that add flavor to both the characters and the setting. The sense of place is incredibly strong, which is always one of the most important elements of a book to me.
One question I asked myself near the beginning of my read was: “Is the character writing for Rex and Leif substantial enough for someone’s who has never heard of Rhett and Link before picking up the book”? and the answer I arrived at was: “yes, I think so.”
The characters aren’t a 1-to-1 facsimile of our favorite entertainers, and regardless, they are scripted with enough nuance and depth that complete newcomers will be able to get a good feel for who these guys are, and what their friendship dynamic is like. I do think it’s possible that a stranger picking up this book on a whim, might be less inclined to find the Leif character as likable, without knowledge of the real life counter-part.
Both Rex and Leif are made the butt of a number of jokes throughout the pages, but Leif in particular takes the brunt of the self-deprecation. He’s presented as petty and difficult to perhaps an overbearing degree that could see him lose his charm in the eyes of a stranger, but more-or-less adds to his charm if you’re familiar with the actual Link. It’s one of a few areas where your personal bias will likely determine how you view it.
On a lead character level, overall I think anyone could get on board with them and find them suitable protagonists, but I do think Mythical Beast members will get an extra kick out of the book for sure. There are tons of in-jokes and little things geared toward their fanbase scattered throughout.
The other characters are well defined as well, especially Janine who makes for a great third protagonist. Mark Hornhat is a fun comedic side-character and the Ben character serves his purpose well, but could have done with a bit more nuance and depth, given his prominence. The novel doesn’t delve deeply enough into this character in particular, but he remains functional and there are some great moments with him, his long-form gag involving cheer-wine being one of the highlights of the book in my eyes.
The Alicia character had me worried partway-through as at a certain point it seemed like they were afraid to present her as anything other than this absolutely perfect, ideal, aspirational figure, with no flaws whatsoever. If a character’s too perfect, and blanketly “the person in the right” all the time, then they can stop feeling like an actual character and begin to feel more like the author’s playing it safe, or devising a way to personify an ideal, rather than attempting to portray a genuine human. And I think to some degree that is what’s happening with Alicia. She’s one character who had no real-life inspiration behind her and they have referred to her an aspirational character.
At any rate, the character does certainly leaves an impression and once the Whitewood School comes into play, she does begin to feel a bit more like a real person. The way that other characters react to and play off of her, does a good job of grounding her and making her impact known.
Leading up to the book’s release, the tone was one of the things I was most curious about.
Rhett and Link were describing it as darker than anything they’d done before, more serious, more violent. I was greatly curious as to just how dark the book would get.
After reading it, I can say that it is certainly darker, bleaker if you will, than their other uber-cheery work, but it sticks pretty far away from any overtly adult subject matter. There is some violence, but nothing graphic or even all that severe conceptually.
I’m unsure of my answer to the question, “does it feel like it’s pulling its punches”. Maybe a little bit given their target audience, but not in any way that detracts from the narrative.
You could say that this book isn’t as appropriate for all ages as their web content often is, but I think it’s still plenty appropriate most ages. If you’re a parent wondering whether or not this is a suitable read for your kid, I’d say it probably is for middle-schoolers and up, I mean I read way darker stuff all the way back in elementary school, but even if we’re being somewhat conservative about it, ‘The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek’ wouldn’t be out of place in the Young Adult section.
One thing I can’t really agree with is this book’s classification as a horror novel. Rhett and Link have referred to it as horror a number of times, it was even included in Good Reads’ best horror of 2019 collection, but to me, ‘Bleak Creek’ is a thriller with a good dose of humour. I didn’t really find any horror elements through my reading. The book has some good reveals, surprising moments, and pockets of strong tension, but it’s never scary, creepy, or even unnerving.
Maybe for readers of a much younger age, they would find certain elements scary, but to me, horror didn’t feel like a goal in this novel. I didn’t really register an attempt at horror at any point, aside from maybe a backstory sequence in the latter half of the book. I’m a massive horror fan, and I was definitely a little let down to find the promise of horror go so unfulfilled.
There is one significant chunk of the narrative that didn’t fully work for me. I won’t go into specifics since I’m avoiding spoilers and it revolves around the biggest reveal in the book. To keep it vague enough to avoid spoilers, I take no issue with the Wayne Whitewood’s motivation or his backstory, but the specifics of his goal, the means to which he is meant to achieve that goal, seemed a little half-baked to me. Supernatural elements in stories are always at their strongest when there are clearly defined in-universe rules, and the rules to this particular story’s supernatural elements seemed a little slapdash. The highly specific numbers that get thrown out seemed completely random, and had me asking “well, why?” a number of times in a way that did not satisfy the intrigue that had been generated. There certainly could have been stronger connections at play.
This took away from some of the third act developments for me, but it didn’t lessen the characters’ actions and it didn’t hurt the arcs or the big climax at all.
One area that fully succeeds, is the comedy. Knowing how funny Rhett and Link are, I expected some humour in the book to be sure, but all the talk of its seriousness sort of downplayed the comedic element of the book in the lead up to its release. The amount of jokes in ‘Bleak Creek’ surpassed my expectation and the humour ended up being the strongest aspect of the novel to me. It’s genuinely funny throughout and had me laughing out loud. There are some running jokes included across the narrative, and one in particular regarding the term scooter-leg is absolute gold and got me laughing every-single time it re-occurred.
‘The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek’ is a good debut novel and I would definitely read more from Rhett and Link. This can be recommended to plenty of readers, and especially to fans of Rhett and Link, just don’t expect the characters to sit down at a desk and shoot an episode of Will it Novel.
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