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hidekisohma's review
2.0
Man, was this book all over the place. If you're looking for a coherent story, you're not going to find one here.
The back of the book does not help you at all here. Yes the story INCLUDES what happens in the back of the book, but that's not the focal point of the story.
*Spoilers*
The first third of the story is about an author who has writers' block. we get to know about him, his wife, and his plight. he starts out as kind of a butt, but then he gets better. Then as we're starting to like him, NOPE! part 2 is new character.
Then part 2 has its own little story then we go to part 3.
So at this point i figure, oh, it's like an anthology book rather than one story. And you'd be forgiven for believing that. Because the first 2 parts follow that way. Then from part 3 on 3-4 stories get all jumbled up and we go back and forth between a girl reading a book, a murderer guy, a vietnam vet, and a librarian. it's all very mixed up.
The first half, while i didn't really LIKE the endings they told to their stories were at least concise and you knew what you were getting into. okay, they're anthology stories about a town. okay. i can get behind that. Then from the halfway point on it just goes all over the place and not even related to the first half of the book. it's like the author went crazy and just started throwing story ideas out and shuffled them together like a deck of cards.
While there is some death in here as it is a horror book, it's very vanilla and not really scary as much as it is out of nowhere. The author doesn't even do his best to shock as there are 3 children in the book and once again spoilers, all 3 of them live. He didn't have it in him to pull the "kill a child" trigger, and for a horror book, that's pretty weak.
He introduces ideas and then forgets about them, like the creature with the pumpkin head that walks on vines and has a human heart. he literally just kind of never brings that up again after part 2. WHY CAN'T THE BOOK BE ABOUT THAT THING?
If i had to pick a word for this book, it would be 'aimless'. It really doesn't know whether it wants to be an anthology book, or a book with a singular plot. It's one of those stories that started out as a 4 but as the book went on, went down and down, until finally it now sits at a 2.5 which i have to round down to a 2.
The only saving graces about this book are that it's easy to read without too much prose and it reads very fast. That's about it. it had some good ideas that went nowhere and is basically a wasted potential. I liked several of the people who died and wanted them to learn lessons and live and the people that lived i wanted to see die. So i literally got nothing out of this book.
2.5 out of 5 rounded down to a 2.
The back of the book does not help you at all here. Yes the story INCLUDES what happens in the back of the book, but that's not the focal point of the story.
*Spoilers*
The first third of the story is about an author who has writers' block. we get to know about him, his wife, and his plight. he starts out as kind of a butt, but then he gets better. Then as we're starting to like him, NOPE! part 2 is new character.
Then part 2 has its own little story then we go to part 3.
So at this point i figure, oh, it's like an anthology book rather than one story. And you'd be forgiven for believing that. Because the first 2 parts follow that way. Then from part 3 on 3-4 stories get all jumbled up and we go back and forth between a girl reading a book, a murderer guy, a vietnam vet, and a librarian. it's all very mixed up.
The first half, while i didn't really LIKE the endings they told to their stories were at least concise and you knew what you were getting into. okay, they're anthology stories about a town. okay. i can get behind that. Then from the halfway point on it just goes all over the place and not even related to the first half of the book. it's like the author went crazy and just started throwing story ideas out and shuffled them together like a deck of cards.
While there is some death in here as it is a horror book, it's very vanilla and not really scary as much as it is out of nowhere. The author doesn't even do his best to shock as there are 3 children in the book and once again spoilers, all 3 of them live. He didn't have it in him to pull the "kill a child" trigger, and for a horror book, that's pretty weak.
He introduces ideas and then forgets about them, like the creature with the pumpkin head that walks on vines and has a human heart. he literally just kind of never brings that up again after part 2. WHY CAN'T THE BOOK BE ABOUT THAT THING?
If i had to pick a word for this book, it would be 'aimless'. It really doesn't know whether it wants to be an anthology book, or a book with a singular plot. It's one of those stories that started out as a 4 but as the book went on, went down and down, until finally it now sits at a 2.5 which i have to round down to a 2.
The only saving graces about this book are that it's easy to read without too much prose and it reads very fast. That's about it. it had some good ideas that went nowhere and is basically a wasted potential. I liked several of the people who died and wanted them to learn lessons and live and the people that lived i wanted to see die. So i literally got nothing out of this book.
2.5 out of 5 rounded down to a 2.
nicholsphoto's review
2.0
One of the stupidest books ever written. Not cohesive and it was a lame storyline. Confusing as well. How this came to be a book I don't know b
jayrothermel's review
4.0
A modest supernatural novel built of short stories previously published. Autumnal atmosphere is very well-done.
smcscot's review
2.0
I didn't have crazy high expectations for this one and I didn't get let down. I was looking for a nice halloween story to get me in the mood and it seemed like the perfect book, however I'm starting to get really annoyed at te jacket sleeves of books. This book was cut into two vignettes and then a longer cohesive story line, the dust jacket covered one of the vignettes, using characters and plot lines which weren't pertinent to the book. Seriously why lie? It was still a good, quick read for what it was (could have used a little more plot focus and direction), so why use subterfuge when the cover of the book is going to make people read it for hat it was anyway? Sometimes I think the writing world would be much better without publicists, makes me wonder if the person who wrote that blurb even finished the book!
lauriereadslohf's review
2.0
I snatched this book out of my tbr pile thinking it was going to be a spooky tale about a town plagued by the "Lord of Death" and creepy pumpkins. Who can pass up creepy pumpkins? What it really was, however, was a hastily slapped together book containing three loosely related novellas that had previously been printed elsewhere. This would've been lovely if I were looking to read a collection of ho-hum poorly researched novellas. But the blurb led me to believe this was a complete novel and it wasn't. I've been deceived! And now I'm a bit grouchy.
I made it through the first story even though I had a nagging feeling I'd read it somewhere before (turns out I had). It was about a writer suffering through writer's block, a marriage that is falling apart and bees. The ending drove me nuts because I saw it miles away (and quite possibly because I had read it before) but I did have to wonder why the protagonist never realized it. This made him look like a real dummy.
To aggravate me further, a character named Samhain "The Lord of Death" arrives to wreak some havoc. Apparently "Sam" is terrorizing the small town where the nasty bees and the not-so-bright writer live. Typically the Celtic holiday is not pronounced "Sam Hain" but "Sow - En" but I guess it would've been too silly to nickname the Big Baddie "Sow". Hee hee, that might've kept me reading though! Anyway, if the story hadn't been so average I might have been able to overlook that silly nitpick and go with the flow but it wasn't and I can't let it go. Sorry, I warned you I was grouchy.
The last story bored me so much that I couldn't even get through it. I guess what I'm saying here in this crappy review is that I'd recommend skipping this one unless you're looking for some Horrorweenie type short stories and this all sounds fab to you.
I made it through the first story even though I had a nagging feeling I'd read it somewhere before (turns out I had). It was about a writer suffering through writer's block, a marriage that is falling apart and bees. The ending drove me nuts because I saw it miles away (and quite possibly because I had read it before) but I did have to wonder why the protagonist never realized it. This made him look like a real dummy.
To aggravate me further, a character named Samhain "The Lord of Death" arrives to wreak some havoc. Apparently "Sam" is terrorizing the small town where the nasty bees and the not-so-bright writer live. Typically the Celtic holiday is not pronounced "Sam Hain" but "Sow - En" but I guess it would've been too silly to nickname the Big Baddie "Sow". Hee hee, that might've kept me reading though! Anyway, if the story hadn't been so average I might have been able to overlook that silly nitpick and go with the flow but it wasn't and I can't let it go. Sorry, I warned you I was grouchy.
The last story bored me so much that I couldn't even get through it. I guess what I'm saying here in this crappy review is that I'd recommend skipping this one unless you're looking for some Horrorweenie type short stories and this all sounds fab to you.
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