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mxsallybend's review
4.0
The young couple with the dog. The once distraught driver. The old man at the bus stop. The gang of kids on the field.
Even the bent and twisted young lad smeared across the tarmac outside his house, bubbles of blood blew from his nose as the breath left his punctured lungs, eyes fixed wide, yet remaining as calm as a stoned Buddha, despite his probable broken spine and multiple fractures.
All of them were staring blankly at the house.
And so begins the creepy, darkly humorous, Starers by Nathan Robinson.
With a well-intentioned dad, a slightly depressed mother, an angry daughter, and a wise-cracking uncle, the Keenes are just your average family. Nothing special, nothing too embarrassing, nothing horrific. You probably wouldn't look twice if you were to walk past their house, but that's exactly what thousands of ordinary people do - stop and stare, for no apparent reason. If that doesn't creep you out, then I can only imagine it's because you have no doors or windows in your home, and have never felt that tickle of dread that slips down your neck when you feel like you're being watched.
This is creepy, Twilight Zone-inspired, zombie-inspired horror here, folks. It's the kind of horror that builds slowly, wearing away your defenses, as it gets under your skin. The strangers outside aren't violent, but they're there, more of them by the hour, crowding in closer and closer, without a single word said about why they find you so worthy of their mindless, vacant, yet somehow accusing stares. You begin feeling claustrophobic in your own home. Your family begins looking to one another for answers . . . and blame. More than that, you begin dehumanizing the crowd outside, as your fear struggles to make monsters out of them, in order to justify your fears. Eventually, you just have to get out, but if they won't move, if they won't let you out, at what point does your violence become a rational, even necessary response?
Dark, creepy, and oh-so-very gory, this is also a book that's often laugh-out-loud funny. Such black (and sometimes corny) humour should feel out of place, but it helps to remind the reader of just how absurd the situation is. Kudos to Robinson for being able to manage that balancing act, and for knowing just when to alleviate some of the tension, without denying the story its unsettling heart. Definitely worth a read.
Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins
Even the bent and twisted young lad smeared across the tarmac outside his house, bubbles of blood blew from his nose as the breath left his punctured lungs, eyes fixed wide, yet remaining as calm as a stoned Buddha, despite his probable broken spine and multiple fractures.
All of them were staring blankly at the house.
And so begins the creepy, darkly humorous, Starers by Nathan Robinson.
With a well-intentioned dad, a slightly depressed mother, an angry daughter, and a wise-cracking uncle, the Keenes are just your average family. Nothing special, nothing too embarrassing, nothing horrific. You probably wouldn't look twice if you were to walk past their house, but that's exactly what thousands of ordinary people do - stop and stare, for no apparent reason. If that doesn't creep you out, then I can only imagine it's because you have no doors or windows in your home, and have never felt that tickle of dread that slips down your neck when you feel like you're being watched.
This is creepy, Twilight Zone-inspired, zombie-inspired horror here, folks. It's the kind of horror that builds slowly, wearing away your defenses, as it gets under your skin. The strangers outside aren't violent, but they're there, more of them by the hour, crowding in closer and closer, without a single word said about why they find you so worthy of their mindless, vacant, yet somehow accusing stares. You begin feeling claustrophobic in your own home. Your family begins looking to one another for answers . . . and blame. More than that, you begin dehumanizing the crowd outside, as your fear struggles to make monsters out of them, in order to justify your fears. Eventually, you just have to get out, but if they won't move, if they won't let you out, at what point does your violence become a rational, even necessary response?
Dark, creepy, and oh-so-very gory, this is also a book that's often laugh-out-loud funny. Such black (and sometimes corny) humour should feel out of place, but it helps to remind the reader of just how absurd the situation is. Kudos to Robinson for being able to manage that balancing act, and for knowing just when to alleviate some of the tension, without denying the story its unsettling heart. Definitely worth a read.
Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins
gnashchick's review
4.0
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. The opinion in this review is unbiased and reflects my honest judgment of the book.
I’ve been reading horror stories since I was dexterous enough to hold both a flashlight and a book under the covers. I’m hard to scare. Starers creeped me right the %$!@# out.
The plot is deceptively simple. Dylan Keene and his brother Len are a couple of average, working-class guys. They hit the pub at the end of the week, get drunk with friends, close the pub and head home to play video games. The brothers wake up with vicious hangovers and a strange surprise--their neighbors are staring at them.
The rest of the book follows Len, Dylan, his wife Kirsty and daughter Lucy as they deal with the siege-like situation. The author brings us along for the ride with a well-crafted blend of tension, surprises, and some of the best dialogue I’ve read in a long time. I wasn’t waiting for the next thing to happen; the action flowed well and kept me hooked.
What I liked most about this book was that the Keene family didn’t have a clue what was going on and neither did I. We were all along for the ride together. That sense of shared suspense is what made the book so good. That the characters acted and reacted like normal everyday people made it even better.
My only quibble with the book was the ending. The tension and inevitable violence should have hit like a double-decker bus, but it stalled. The long internal monologues of one of the characters made me release my white-knuckled hold on my e-reader. I was tempted to roll my eyes like a petulant teenager and skip ahead to the good bits.
Read this book. After you’ve put it down, you’ll be watching over your shoulder for a creepy old man standing on the street, staring at you. It’s a fantastic read. Did I mention it made my skin crawl in a most delightful manner? Yes. You want to read Starers.
www.bookie-monster.com
I’ve been reading horror stories since I was dexterous enough to hold both a flashlight and a book under the covers. I’m hard to scare. Starers creeped me right the %$!@# out.
The plot is deceptively simple. Dylan Keene and his brother Len are a couple of average, working-class guys. They hit the pub at the end of the week, get drunk with friends, close the pub and head home to play video games. The brothers wake up with vicious hangovers and a strange surprise--their neighbors are staring at them.
The rest of the book follows Len, Dylan, his wife Kirsty and daughter Lucy as they deal with the siege-like situation. The author brings us along for the ride with a well-crafted blend of tension, surprises, and some of the best dialogue I’ve read in a long time. I wasn’t waiting for the next thing to happen; the action flowed well and kept me hooked.
What I liked most about this book was that the Keene family didn’t have a clue what was going on and neither did I. We were all along for the ride together. That sense of shared suspense is what made the book so good. That the characters acted and reacted like normal everyday people made it even better.
My only quibble with the book was the ending. The tension and inevitable violence should have hit like a double-decker bus, but it stalled. The long internal monologues of one of the characters made me release my white-knuckled hold on my e-reader. I was tempted to roll my eyes like a petulant teenager and skip ahead to the good bits.
Read this book. After you’ve put it down, you’ll be watching over your shoulder for a creepy old man standing on the street, staring at you. It’s a fantastic read. Did I mention it made my skin crawl in a most delightful manner? Yes. You want to read Starers.
www.bookie-monster.com
el_stevie's review
2.0
I enjoyed the idea behind the book, especially the end-of-the-world type scenario but there was one particular feature which really jarred with me and that was the sexualisation of a 12-year-old girl. I work in a secondary school and anyone caught as she was at 12 would not just have had a letter or call from the headmaster. It would be child protection at the very least, family backgrounds examined etc - much of this to ensure grooming is not a part of that child's life. Early evidence of this is always acted upon in schools and this has really affected my view of the story, as did the attempted rape of Lucy by the mysterious 'He' of the story. To me, Lucy was still too much of a child to be suffering all this and I found that difficult. Without this aspect, I would have rated the story higher.
erina's review
4.0
Starers reminds me of a horror movie. It is quick, it is gory, and it is fun. If one read this communally with friends (like some families do with Dickens' Christmas Carol) I think you could make an entertaining evening. With the witty Briticisms, gore, and zombieesque beings, it reminded me of Shawn of the Dead. I love Simon Pegg and don't make the comparison lightly. In between the fear of death, the bursting eyeballs, and terrifying dreams, this book is really quite funny. I think it is the humour (Lennon I love you) that makes this book so enjoyable, because without it this book risks being a constant gore fest. There really is a lot of gore. Gore should be given main character status. The characters were really well developed, and while not likable and certainly flawed, they seemed to be truer to life then most fictional characters. Their actions in preparing for the end of times were really realistic as were there spiraling thoughts. As other reviewers have noted, Robinson does a great job of showing how good people can do evil things in the name of survival and how that us vs them/ survive mentality can justify anything.
If you are looking for a genuinely horrifying book, with humour and gore in about equal ratio, then this is a perfect don'-t-turn-off-the-lights read.
If you are looking for a genuinely horrifying book, with humour and gore in about equal ratio, then this is a perfect don'-t-turn-off-the-lights read.
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