Gnome Cave: The AVGN Critiques Nostalgia

So this will be somewhat different than my normal blogs, just because I'm not sure how cool James Rolfe is with a full-on page for page recap, but will go over the plot regardless, so still a spoiler warning. This is more a general review of the book which will still go over the events of it.

James Rolfe has been a part of my life for 20 years. Which is depressing to think about when you consider it. But yeah, from the early days of Youtube, I've had James' AVGN character be a formative character in my twenties going into forties. I remember specifically that the first episode I watched was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles review, having grown up with that frustrating game. And I was still in the perfect age for immaturity. I mean I'm still immature as hell, but you get my drift. But loud, vulgar, angry man ranting on old video games was up my alley. Even if the man seemed a bit too interested in the scatological. I of course ended up being a fan of the likes of the Nostalgia Critic, and others of that ilk. But overtime I started to wind down my interest as I became more interested in pure reviews over skit-laden, shouty, "media bad" videos.

But I'm also now a book reviewer. One that mainly reviews old kids books, but I'm willing to make some exceptions. And, much like James Rolfe, I'm someone who surrounds themselves with nostalgia. And I get the very nature of how toxic that nostalgia is. Which is what interested me when I found out that James had written a book. A horror book called Gnome Cave. Of course I've covered first horror books before from the likes of R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike. So I was at least intrigued about what James of all people had to offer. Could James offer a solid horror story? Well, I bought the book and honestly... I admire the effort is the nicest way to put it. Because it's honestly a rough book. Not in an "emotionally rough to read" book, just very, very rough. 

The book's plot focuses on Dante, whose life has gone to shambles and he thinks it has to do with the Gnome Cave at Pinewood Park. When he was younger with his friends Bruce, Cait and Adam, the three went into the ride. It's a normal kiddie ride, but at the end there is a dragon said to be so scary that kids have died from it. There's a fork in the ride where you can face the dragon, or leave the ride. Dante chose to leave. And as his life worsened over thirty years, he finds an old photo of he and his friends at the ride, and wants to relive it and get it right. So he finds his old friends, they sneak into the abandoned park and into the old ride. The others are pensive against it, mainly Cait who was previously arrested for robbery, so she fears adding to her criminal record. The four enter the cave, which collapses behind them. As the group searches for a way out, a shadowy figure takes out Bruce, Adam and Cait, killing all but Cait. 

It turns out Dante's the killer, as he feared death and wanted to experience what he lost his chance at experiencing when he was young. Cait manages to escape while Dante faces the form of the dragon... which is a goofy looking normal dragon, but soon turns into a monstrous form that kills Dante. Cait manages to escape, leaving the three in the coaster, while fearing being caught. Twenty years later, she sees that the park's been removed and new buildings have taken its place, including a Chinese restaurant, that has a similar looking dragon inside.

I do like the idea that James is trying to present with the book. How nostalgia blinds us. How we yearn for the days of our youth, how we can be obsessed by what we missed out. And I can at least buy Dante's sudden villain turn, because it is SUPER sudden. Which given this book is a mere 98 pages, with six of those pages being used for an introduction by James, is far from surprising. The book sets up that he has no life, his mother dies of cancer brought on by the pandemic, he has nothing left but the memory of the moment he feels his life went to shit. And he doesn't really consider moving forward from his youth, because he fears the end of his life. Why it turned him into a killer is less understandable. The book tries to set up the idea that maybe the gnome cave turned him evil, but it's not really well structured. The book also turns into Cait being the focus by the end, and while there's a lot of focus on her being a former criminal, it does feel like a plot device to add to her worries about the deaths at the end and not so much a key element to her as a character.. 

The book is also very weirdly structured. A lot of paragraphs that try to sound more pithy, but really feel like filler chapters. Dialogue is a bit all over the place as well. I've read other reviews saying it can be hard to tell who's talking at times, and I didn't find it as frustrating, though there are places. Also for a bit the book calls the animatronic gnomes elves and not gnomes, which feels odd. As if the book was going to be called Elf Cave and was changed to Gnome Cave, but some of the elf dialogue was left in. And that's really what I think the book feels like to me. It feels like a draft. And an early one at that. It definitely feels like a story that should have had more time to cook in the oven, and more time to have fun with its idea. But it moves at such a breakneck pace that it feels more like a microwave meal. 

Also, I'm going to give James the benefit of the doubt and say he didn't use AI, or at least not entirely. I know that the cover art was not made with AI as the artist has since confirmed that. And I love the cover, which is really creepy and gives off a dilapidated old ride feel that I wish the book had more time and more fun to cover. And the reason I feel this book isn't AI or wholly AI is that aforementioned feeling of still feeling like a draft. There's still this sense of it being something James would write as much of the book uses references that fir with James as a whole. It feels like an idea he had and writing that he put to paper. And that's why I do feel a little bad knocking the book as a whole. It feels like something he should have worked harder on and built more on. Its length also feels so weird. The page count feels more in line with a Goosebumps book than a story intended for an adult audience.

I do feel like this was something James had passion in making. And I think he wants this to work for him. And honestly, I would like to see him try again. If he's passionate about this, he could eventually improve if he wants to continue. But this is a rough first book. It tries to be adult but doesn't captivate an adult audience, and honestly, if he fixed it up a bit, and made it about a kid's fear of missing out on something like the dragon, this could easily be a Goosebumps-like. Maybe that's the hook. Maybe James should try to make Goosebumps style books. Wouldn't hurt to try at least. 

So ultimately, this isn't a good book. There's definitely an effort, but it does feel like a book from someone with really no history of the writing process going all-in and offering what he felt was his best effort. Is it the worst book ever? Nah. Is it, to coin the man himself, a shitload of fuck? Not really. But it definitely could have been given more time to build, and it definitely needed to at least feel like a stronger story overall. Nostalgia is clearly a motivator in much of what James does, and I can see it maybe being something he bases his ideas from. And this almost could have been a great use of the idea, but it needed a lot more work and just wasn't ready for prime time. Gnome Cave gets a C.