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paulabrandon's review
1.0
It's funny. I'm a gal who's loved horror ever since I was young, watching them on TV late at night, or some forbidden horror VHSs at various sleepovers. Heck, I watched Crawl at the movies a few weeks ago and absolutely loved it. But this love of horror has rarely transferred to books, unless it's 80s and 90s YA horror. This tale, published in 2007, bored the absolute crap out of me.
The plot has teen twins Haley and Heather Thurston get involved in chaos magic through their friend Karla, the most popular girl in school despite being poor white trash (it's suggested magic has made her popular.) Haley is into it, Heather isn't. Haley falls under the thrall of some long-haired loser called Caster who's into chaos magic and thinks she's the big deal, or something. There's talk about sigils, snakes and strange creatures, but none of it really makes a lick of sense.
At first, I thought this might be a horror story featuring teens, but that wasn't the case. If the focus isn't on teen leads Haley and Heather, it's on their grandfather Buck and a teacher neighbour, Mark. For a book about dark magic, this was astonishingly dull. Nothing happens! It's the type of book where events will be told through one point of view, and then the same events repeated through another point of view. Dull!
It also had a big pet hate: Haley is chained up in a barn by the long-haired loser, and we spend infinite chapters following Mark and Buck around as they try to find her. Memo to writers: following characters bumbling about trying to discover something THE READER ALREADY KNOWS is really freaking dull! I see it a lot.
I basically skimmed the second half. I couldn't quite follow what was going on, but I didn't really care. I just wanted to finish this zzzz-inducing crap so I could move on to something else.
The plot has teen twins Haley and Heather Thurston get involved in chaos magic through their friend Karla, the most popular girl in school despite being poor white trash (it's suggested magic has made her popular.) Haley is into it, Heather isn't. Haley falls under the thrall of some long-haired loser called Caster who's into chaos magic and thinks she's the big deal, or something. There's talk about sigils, snakes and strange creatures, but none of it really makes a lick of sense.
At first, I thought this might be a horror story featuring teens, but that wasn't the case. If the focus isn't on teen leads Haley and Heather, it's on their grandfather Buck and a teacher neighbour, Mark. For a book about dark magic, this was astonishingly dull. Nothing happens! It's the type of book where events will be told through one point of view, and then the same events repeated through another point of view. Dull!
It also had a big pet hate: Haley is chained up in a barn by the long-haired loser, and we spend infinite chapters following Mark and Buck around as they try to find her. Memo to writers: following characters bumbling about trying to discover something THE READER ALREADY KNOWS is really freaking dull! I see it a lot.
I basically skimmed the second half. I couldn't quite follow what was going on, but I didn't really care. I just wanted to finish this zzzz-inducing crap so I could move on to something else.
stefhyena's review
1.0
The internet keeps erasing what I write about this book. It was a bunch of cliches strung together and I moved between being offended (in a weary way, not in a challenging way) and just bored by what I read. I tried to give it a more lengthy and detailed critique twice now but it got erased.
I think if there wasn't an assumption out there that horror has to be sexualised this would have been a much better book...but there were many flaws in the way the characterisation and plotting were put together in any case.
I don't recommend it at all, but see from other reviews that some people liked it more than I did.
I think if there wasn't an assumption out there that horror has to be sexualised this would have been a much better book...but there were many flaws in the way the characterisation and plotting were put together in any case.
I don't recommend it at all, but see from other reviews that some people liked it more than I did.
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