Just Stay Away

When a mysterious neighborhood boy befriends his young daughter, stay-at-home dad Craig considers him a godsend—until it becomes clear that there’s nothing angelic about him at all.

Craig Finnigan is determined to finish his book this summer, but being an aspiring writer while wrangling his seven-year-old daughter is not easy. So when Alice makes fast friends with a neighborhood boy, Levi, Craig is happy she has a distraction from her constant visits to his home office.

But that happiness soon turns to misgivings as Levi’s behavior evolves from that of a shy, odd boy into something far more disturbing. Strange noises in the middle of the night and things disappearing from their home could be explained away—maybe it’s the water heater, or maybe Craig simply misplaced his flash drive. Craig can’t explain his paranoia, but he feels sure Levi is behind it.

As Levi’s visits to their backyard become more and more frequent, Craig finds himself the unwilling participant in a game he never asked to play…and one he’s not sure he can win.

• Just Stay Away by Tony Wirt
• Published by: Brilliance Audio on October 1, 2023
• Genre: Thriller, horror
• Listening length: 9 hours 12 minutes
• Dates listened: 7.6.2025 – 7.10.2025 (5 days)
• Format: Audiobook
• Narrator: Joe Knezevich
• Add on Goodreads
• Purchase on Amazon
• ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• ☠☠

---

Last year, one night at work, our medical director was on call and staying at the hospital because she lives an hour and a half away. Wanting to be available if we needed her, she stayed at the hospital that night. After she came through and checked in on us, she jokingly said, “Do NOT call me!! I’m itching to finish my book, and it is SO good!” Being a book lover, we got to talking about it, and yep! You guessed it! She was reading Just Stay Away. I had just finished The Housemaid, so we were swapping enthusiastic explanations of our books. I still think The Housemaid is one of my favorite thriller/mystery books that I’ve read in the last couple of years. It was definitely one I had a hard time putting down, staying up waaaaay past my bedtime to read the next chapter.

So…did this book live up to the hype that Dr. Higgerson boasted about? Eh, it was a little flat for me. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was still a really good book, and was really entertaining. But compared to other thrillers I’ve read, I have a few others I’d recommend before this one. But I would still recommend this one! haha I know it’s confusing. I feel you judging me!!

Everyone has fears. Some people hate clowns. Like me! Everyone has their own personal “boogey man” that makes their skin crawl, and the hair on the back of their necks raise. The thing that goes bump in the night that will keep you awake at night. And for me, it’s honestly a toss-up between clowns and evil children. I’d actually have to put evil children up there higher than clowns, because I run into WAY more kids than I do clowns. Hell, my job is working with kids. So yeah, the fact that one of these little fuckers could be a secret psycho waiting for an opportunity to murder me in my sleep. Hell to the naw!!! I’m out of there! I also think it may have something to do with one of the earliest horror movies I watched with my dad, which was Children of the Corn.

Sometimes all kids needed was someone to spend a little time with them, especially when nobody else in their lives would.

The author, Tony Wirt, does a great job of building up the suspense of the book. It pretty much starts from the get-go, keeping you intrigued and on your toes. I’d describe it as fast-paced. However, with that being said, towards the end, I was finding all the little scenes between the adult MMC, Craig, and the young MMC, Levi, a little tedious. This could have been because I was listening to the book instead of reading, who knows? But I was finding myself thinking, “Ok, when is this going to play out? How many more things can happen, sheesh!” And at just about that time…boy did it happen!! That final showdown was a doozy! I read in an interview with the author, when asked about this ending, he said that he struggled with it a bit. Craig’s nemesis in the book is a 9-year-old boy. It’s not like you can have them duke it out in a fight. And not like you can kill off a 9-year-old, without probably getting some backlash. So just how DO you end it? But Wirt came up with the perfect solution. You’ll have to read it to find out! 😜

The only other thing that was a little bit of a thorn in my side was that I kind of just…didn’t really like Craig all that much. But now that I’ve read the book, I think that is on purpose. We don’t like every single person we meet in our lives. Hell! Some days I don’t even like myself all that much. But making Craig have some qualities that annoyed me made him even that much more realistic. Like this could happen to you, to me, to anyone out there. You befriend an innocent (what you thought was innocent) young boy because he wants to play with your kid, and hey, it gives you a little bit of peace and quiet. So you ignore that gut feeling. You gaslight yourself, telling yourself you’re being unreasonable. He’s just a kid ffs!! But you pay the price for letting your guard down sometimes.

I think this book lends itself to the heated topic of the whole nature vs. nurture argument. I’ve always been one who says it can be both. I know that there are definitely circumstances that can lead someone to…not be right in the head. Child abuse, head trauma, PTSD, things like that. But I also believe that some people are just born fucked up. I know that’s not a politically correct way to say it, but what else do you call it? Whether it’s some chemical in their brain that isn’t right, or just something went haywire in the early stages of an embryo’s growth. Whatever the reason, I do think that some people are just born messed up. And to me, it’s those individuals that are scary as hell! You can’t really fix them. There’s no therapy, no medication, nothing that can fix someone who is just born that way. So…what do we do?