Rating: 
Summary: Relatable and nostalgic
Review: As a current high school student, I find it difficult to find teen novels that honestly show the reality of a high school student's life. Not only do most books stereotype their characters and place them into cliques, but they scrub them clean of any nitty gritty, deep down emotions and thoughts that teenagers may share. When trying to appeal to a larger demographic, they forget about being completely real to their inspiration.This is not so in "The Boys Are Back in Town". When picking it up, I found myself unable to put the book down for quite some time. Beautifully written, Golden's narrative nostalgic story flows well and is always peaking your interest. The one thing I especially liked about this novel was its honesty. So what if it seems that the amount of curses and obsceneties is a little much? If you're in high school, or recall high school very well, you may remember that those words are used as a part of an everyday vocabulary. Your emotions are at its highest, and Golden shows this through the characters reactions. I also enjoyed the pop culture references. When you're in high school, your life revolves around the media and this is something that is touched upon very well in the story. I thoroughly enjoyed the no shame, bluntness of the characters and have found this to be one of the best books Golden has written.
Rating: 
Summary: VG for its genre, but there are better time travel novels
Review: As a time travel novel "The Boys Are Back in Town" is a good fast read. The characters are, for the most part, likeable, the author effectively deals with time travel paradoxes, and the plot is a page turner.
For a genre piece this book is a four star effort. For general quality, it's a three.
First off, the primary villain is not really believable. The character is so inherently evil and cruel that it's not believable that they are motivated by the events in the book. Because this is genre fiction the author sped the plot along and glossed over these details. In a better book we would have known and understood more about what led to the villain's mindset.
The book also suffers from far too many characters who are almost undistinguishable from each other. True, any book about a high school reunion is likely to include many people. But here we just get surface descriptions. Obviously, the author would have slowed the plot down with this information.
One reviewer on the cover refers to this book as something Rod Serling would love. When you read the last paragraph you'll understand the remark. It's a good ending (can't say that about many books!) and it fits the tone of the story.
In the end, "The Boys Are Back in Town" is a highly enjoyable read that will likely be quickly forgotten. If you're looking for a more memorable time travel novel I'd recommend "Replay" by Ken Grimwood.
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of characters, little substance
Review: By the time you'll be able to keep track of all the characters' names it's too late to care very much about them in this nostalgia-ridden tale of time-travelling, magick-wielding teens turned adults, trying to figure out who's messing with their pasts on the eve of their high school reunion. The book starts off cruising on an endless stream of pop culture references, slides into flashbacks and time travel, only to come to a halt with a couple of fight scenes and plea for forgiveness. There's a lot of detail here, but not a lot of depth--the boys may be back in town, but I hardly felt that any of these main characters really cared about what they came back for. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for high school nostalgia, but this reads more like the Cliff Notes version of true feeling and memory.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not Golden's best...
Review: Christopher Golden's novels have blown me away. Although he writes in the horror genre, his writing is done with so much emotion and skill that you can easily lose yourself in the narrative. The Ferryman and Straight on Til Morning are two of the best horror novels published in the past decade. That said, it comes with great disappointemnt to say that The Boys Are Back in Town is a step back for Golden. Although the very things that have made his previous books such successes (great characters, a very imaginative plot, beautiful writing) are present, the book nonetheless feels like something Golden would have written in the early parts of his career. Will is getting ready to go to his high school reunion. Once there, he rekindles his friendship with all of his high school friends. But just as things start to fall into place, Will's memories of the past start to change. Mike, one of Will's friend, now seems to be dead while Will remembers e-mailing him just a few days before the reunion. More of his memories disappear, replaced by darker, more violent ones. Why? Well, everything is related to the past. Seems like Will and his best friend Brian were deep into magic as teens. Now someone seems to be putting a spell on Will, one that changes his memories to make his present life a living hell. Will feels he has no choice but to cast a spell on himself to bring him back in time - to his senior year of high school - in order to stop whoever is murdering or torturing his friends. The plot does sound like some bad 80s b-movie. And at times, the plot points feel just a bit too ludicrous and over-the-top to be truly enjoyable. And that's too bad, because Golden was able to create some very emotional moments in this book. Who wouldn't like to go back in time to change the way things were? Who wouldn't want to go back in time to meet his younger self and try to stop him from making the mistakes you've done? If Golden had played with this aspect more, the book would have been much stronger. And the narrative isn't helped by the Carrie rip-off ending that never suits the book. That said, there is still a lot to love about this book. The nostalgic plot will often leave you feeling quite sad, while the characters feel so real and are so well written that it feels as though they were your own friends back in high school. Golden was always able to write vivid and realistic characters, and this one is no exception. If this book did one thing for me, it made me wonder what Golden could do with a straight-on, non-genre narrative. The Boys are Back in Town is a novel full of emotions and plot twists that never ad up to what they should. And although this one is still better than half the horror books out there, I still couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed in the end.
Rating:
Summary: Golden does it again..
Review: From the very first paragraph I was hooked into the world of Will James. The twists, turns, side steps and dark alleys kept me on the edge of my seat. Christopher Golden took a story about a high school reunion at a small New England high school and rewired it with shifting realities and memories. Who hasn't wanted to go back and change the past or tinker with the present? The Boys are Back in Town shows what can go wrong if you take power into your own hands and create you own reality.
Rating:
Summary: Golden is golden
Review: Got hooked right from the first paragraph. The perils of tinkering with ones memories comes to wreck havoc on the lives of not only the main character Will James but those around him. The plot twists and turns and dark alleys that Chris brings us through kept me on the edge of my seat. It was a great read!
Rating:
Summary: Golden is golden
Review: Got hooked right from the first paragraph. The perils of tinkering with ones memories comes to wreck havoc on the lives of not only the main character Will James but those around him. The plot twists and turns and dark alleys that Chris brings us through kept me on the edge of my seat. It was a great read!
Rating:
Summary: I had to put it down
Review: I literally had to set the book down. I found myself so engrossed in the main character and his predicament that I was too tense to continue. Prying myself away, I took a moment and realized, with a big smile, that I had gotten sucked in much like how Will was drawn into his plight. For him, what seemed to be a typical start to a reunion weekend suddenly had turned frightening and confusing. And before the first few chapters ended, that is exactly how I felt. The setting, the characters, the action and suspense all flowed well together to make this a real page turner. (when I could pick it back up again) I dove through it wanting to see how it would all end and who would be left standing. It was entertaining, it was suspenseful, it held my attention, and I was thrilled with it.
Rating:
Summary: I had to put it down
Review: I literally had to set the book down. I found myself so engrossed in the main character and his predicament that I was too tense to continue. Prying myself away, I took a moment and realized, with a big smile, that I had gotten sucked in much like how Will was drawn into his plight. For him, what seemed to be a typical start to a reunion weekend suddenly had turned frightening and confusing. And before the first few chapters ended, that is exactly how I felt. The setting, the characters, the action and suspense all flowed well together to make this a real page turner. (when I could pick it back up again) I dove through it wanting to see how it would all end and who would be left standing. It was entertaining, it was suspenseful, it held my attention, and I was thrilled with it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good plot but didn't like hero
Review: I loved all the Christopher Golden Buffy books I have read and I decided to try a non-Buffy book of his. It turns out that the story of "The Boys Are Back in Town" could fit right into the Buffyverse. After a slow start, I grew absorbed in this creepy and interesting story. I also thought the ending was appropriate to the tone of the book. My one complaint is that I had a hard time liking the hero Will. There are lots of descriptions of him in high school drinking and throwing up with his buddies, peeking up skirts and down blouses, and taking part in some not-so-innocent pranks. The f-word also appears on almost every page. Maybe I just find it hard to relate to the average teenage boy, but I lost sympathy for him with every turn of the page.
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