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justjoel's review
1.0
This book sat on my shelf for 30 years, and the two weeks it took me to read it felt like they took equally as long.
I thought the book began well enough. There were echoes of Stephen King's Pet Sematary and It. I thought the author did a great job with the father/daughter relationship and capturing the essence of a kid's thoughts.
And then the rest of the book happened.
It took me a while to figure out why I was having trouble with the book, and why I consistently found excuses to not read it. There are a lot of inconsistencies with the main character. Yes, real people have inconsistencies, but fiction is supposed to give a reason for actions and explain things we don't always know outside of books because we can't be in another person's head.
This didn't. And there were so many things that seemed important to the story that were handled "off-screen," so to speak, breaking the rule of "show, don't tell." Whether this is due to author or just poor editing, I don't know, but the inconsistencies are what really destroyed my pleasure in reading this: the out-of-nowhere subplot with Maria, the inability to decide whether to call the sacred object a spear or a sword, the lack of knowing what repercussions arose from the rescue mission, Heather's convenient appearances and disappearances. All these and more ruined the story for me.
I have zero interest in reading the sequels.
1 out of 5 stars.
I thought the book began well enough. There were echoes of Stephen King's Pet Sematary and It. I thought the author did a great job with the father/daughter relationship and capturing the essence of a kid's thoughts.
And then the rest of the book happened.
It took me a while to figure out why I was having trouble with the book, and why I consistently found excuses to not read it. There are a lot of inconsistencies with the main character. Yes, real people have inconsistencies, but fiction is supposed to give a reason for actions and explain things we don't always know outside of books because we can't be in another person's head.
This didn't. And there were so many things that seemed important to the story that were handled "off-screen," so to speak, breaking the rule of "show, don't tell." Whether this is due to author or just poor editing, I don't know, but the inconsistencies are what really destroyed my pleasure in reading this: the out-of-nowhere subplot with Maria, the inability to decide whether to call the sacred object a spear or a sword, the lack of knowing what repercussions arose from the rescue mission, Heather's convenient appearances and disappearances. All these and more ruined the story for me.
I have zero interest in reading the sequels.
1 out of 5 stars.
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