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artemiscat's review
megselyane's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Child death, Death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death of parent, Violence, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Grief, and Mental illness
Moderate: Vomit, Gore, Medical content, Cursing, Alcohol, Sexual content, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Sexism and Addiction
charshorrorcorner's review
4.0
Mr. Gregory's prose is sublime, as always, and often chilling. I had goose flesh quite a few times while reading this story full of madness, confusion, ghosts?, psychopaths?, alcohol and a mother's love.
The synopsis goes into the plot of this story, so I will not. Instead, I want to talk about my impressions. The subtitle of this book is "A dark novel of possession". I've been thinking about what that means. There were no Exorcist moments here. No heads turning 'round or pea soup spouting out. (What were there were quiet moments, punctuated with scenes of extreme violence and chilling madness.) Perhaps the possession mentioned in the subtitle is referring to the fact that we can't hold on to things in this life. Not people, not things, sometimes not even our memories. Perhaps this novel is about what happens when we cannot let these possessions, or people, go? That's how I choose to see it, anyway. Future or other readers, I would be happy to talk to you about what you thought in the comments below.
To mention the prose once again, it's beautiful and mostly simple, yet effective. (Though I had to break out my Kindle dictionary a couple of times.) I've tried to analyze it and that's the best I can come up with. Check out this quote below.
I went up to the tower. I thought I might find the woman and the boy there, in bed together. Or the boy and his father, enjoying some quality time, a dead man and a mad boy chuckling and joshing and exchanging their stories of being dead and being mad.
There you have it. No big words, nothing pretentious, just a few chilling sentences, made all the more chilling by the almost careless way they're related. Mr. Gregory is a MASTER at this and he has never failed at pulling it off.
Overall, this story was awesome! I don't know any other way to put it. If this book sounds even a little bit interesting to you, I recommend you grab it, read it and come back. We'll talk. :)
My highest recommendation!
brucewayne's review
1.0
Okay, so I really debated reviewing this because I read it awhile ago and the popular consensus about it is that it's horror "gold" but I keep thinking about it, and I just can't get it out of my head how much I absolutely hate this book. I spent 90% of the time begrudgingly listening to the protagonist talking about being sweaty, and the other 10% listening to him talk about having sex with an alcoholic MILF. The "antagonist" is the child he's tutoring, but both characters are so plain that I felt nothing with their interactions. There's little to no psychological horror to it. It all comes to a head right at the end of the novel, and it almost gave me whiplash because it felt like it came out of nowhere. Reading it was like reading a bird watching handbook with a dollar store romance novel stuck in the middle of the pages.
I really hate being harsh on books. Especially popular ones, but I just can't get over how much I dislike it. Maybe it's due for a re-read but I failed to see the horror and I definitely failed to have any connection or feelings for ANY of the characters. If it wasn't such a short book, I would never have finished it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯