Empty Smiles just abruptly ends, almost mid-scene! I truly wondered if Arden was about the miss the publishing deadline and just wrote something in twenty minutes and pressed submit. The puzzle is solved easily in the last ten pages (or even fewer!) of the book! The story could have used at least another 50 pages to wrap up decently, but those final pages at the end are actually excerpts from the previous three books in the series. One might think that this final game would receive a lot of attention from the author, with much drama, suspense, and action. The smiling man tells Ollie’s friends that they must find three keys, and Ollie begins searching.

The story leads up with great care to the final puzzle, the one the readers have all been waiting for. Instead, Arden conveniently removes Phil from the plot, leaving Ollie, Coco, and Brian to solve the puzzle alone! What a bait and switch!īut this is not the only broken promise created by the book. And I really thought he would! I kept waiting to hear the story from his point of view! But this never happens. Phil does keep complaining about feeling a “less-good Ollie” and wanting a moment to prove himself. Ollie, Coco, and Brian each received a story from their perspective, and it seemed like book four was set to be Phil’s book. The smiling man makes some sort of bargain with the protagonists and the children must play a game to either escape his webs or be trapped forever.

So far, the books in the quartet have followed a similar premise. I really cannot recommend Empty Smiles to anyone except those who need to be completionists at any cost. This series may have started out with critical acclaim, but reading four books just to get to a lackluster climax and rushed ending is an experience sure to sour many fans. The pages have been filled with words to satisfy the assignment, but the content just isn’t there. Rather, the book feels like a student paper written the night before and handed in just as the clock turns midnight. It might, one assume, take care to fulfill the promises of earlier books, focusing on Phil’s point of view, revealing more about the origins of the smiling man and his games, providing closure. As the final book in the Small Spaces quartet, Empty Smiles might, one assume, take particular care to build up to a riveting cliffhanger and a satisfying conclusion to the characters and their story.

Empty smiles katherine arden