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billymac1962's review against another edition
3.0
The following review is from my old website...this didn't make the initial migration to Goodreads for some reason.
It wasn't until finishing this novel that I decided to "skull" this review. But the ending was very good, and it was quite shocking in parts.
However...the heroine of the story, Donna, supposedly a caring mother, pissed me off so often that I was tempted to throw the book through a window. I mean, here's a woman on the run with her 12 year old daughter. Her husband, Roy, a child-raping psychotic, has just been released from prison, and doting Donna takes every chance she can get to abandon her daughter and bang away with some stranger (Jud) she just met. It was so bad, I was actually hoping Roy would snatch daughter Sandy...it would have served Donna right. And the love scenes...ugh. Was Laymon 14 years old when he wrote this??
Another unbelievable aspect was Sandy immediately latching onto Jud's buddy Larry, a perfect stranger. This from a 12 year old girl who was raped by her father six years ago.
Give me a break. But...the novel is so short, you don't have to put up with this ridiculousness for long. The ending alone was enough to merit a skull for this review, but I doubt very much I'll be reading Laymon again.
FYI, my website had a cool rotating skull beside those novels I felt bestowed such an honor. This one ranked a skull for the ending alone, but I'm hard pressed to go as high as a four stars...hmmm...OK, three stars but with reservations.
It wasn't until finishing this novel that I decided to "skull" this review. But the ending was very good, and it was quite shocking in parts.
However...the heroine of the story, Donna, supposedly a caring mother, pissed me off so often that I was tempted to throw the book through a window. I mean, here's a woman on the run with her 12 year old daughter. Her husband, Roy, a child-raping psychotic, has just been released from prison, and doting Donna takes every chance she can get to abandon her daughter and bang away with some stranger (Jud) she just met. It was so bad, I was actually hoping Roy would snatch daughter Sandy...it would have served Donna right. And the love scenes...ugh. Was Laymon 14 years old when he wrote this??
Another unbelievable aspect was Sandy immediately latching onto Jud's buddy Larry, a perfect stranger. This from a 12 year old girl who was raped by her father six years ago.
Give me a break. But...the novel is so short, you don't have to put up with this ridiculousness for long. The ending alone was enough to merit a skull for this review, but I doubt very much I'll be reading Laymon again.
FYI, my website had a cool rotating skull beside those novels I felt bestowed such an honor. This one ranked a skull for the ending alone, but I'm hard pressed to go as high as a four stars...hmmm...OK, three stars but with reservations.
thatnerd's review against another edition
I can't do it. I can't read this book. When I reached the part about 20-25 pages in where the author starts describing a just released convict invading a home, murdering the parents, and molesting the daughter, I could not continue. Disgusting and unnecessary as it was implied earlier that this person was a child molester. This was just unnecessary graphic detail that was NOT needed. Based on THAT alone, I will never pick up another book by this author.
the_enobee's review against another edition
4.0
This may be the most messed up, bizarre, and morbid book I have ever read. And I tore through it in 3 sittings! What is wrong with you, Laymon? More importantly, what is wrong with me? I laughed though the last 30 pages in wonder at the twists, turns, and descriptions. Laymon gets an A+ from me for imagination; I'm just not sure he used his powers for good ;)
paperwitch's review against another edition
4.0
Laymon is one of those authors that does not hold back, this book was gory, a bit cheesy, fast paced and messed up. Was it brilliant? No. Was the dialogue a bit shitty? Yes. Were the characters complete idiots? Yes. Was it straight up gory, messed up fun? Yep. The cellar is one of those books that I definitely can see myself rereading in the future.
grimscribe114's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
igotid77's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
modernzorker's review against another edition
2.0
Laymon's a polarizing force in the world of horror literature. People can argue the merits of Barker, Campbell, Herbert, and Simmons, some of the most literary horror authors the genre has birthed, but Laymon brooks no debate -- he literally is the guy you either love to death or you cannot stand, and I fall unashamedly in the first camp. When Laymon's on top of his game, no other horror writer can touch him. He brings the creeps, he brings the humor, he brings the bumbling immaturity of the direct-to-video B-grade horror film to life in his prose, and he does so without apology. Laymon's writing is what it is, aspiring to no pretensions, often taking off like a Navy fighter jet and never slowing down. Once he's got you aloft, that's when you discover there's no parachute, no eject button, and the guy flying the thing's a maniac. All you can do is hold on for dear life and pray the guy remembers how to land. The good news is, 70% of the time you're in good hands. "The Cellar" beats the odds while remaining his most polarizing work. Why only 2 stars? Because it polarized the hell out of me, and I love the dude. Allow me to explain.
I've seen numerous critiques of Laymon over the years from people claiming he had no idea what he was doing, that he was a shit writer, he couldn't plot his way through a stroll in a park much less a novel, his technique smacks of rank amateurism that never improved all that much over a thirty-year career, he was a talentless hack. I understand where this critique comes from, but it's all a charade.
Laymon earned an MFA in writing. The guy taught other people to write as his day job. He produced more novels, short stories, novellas, and content during his all-too-brief life than anyone reading this review has likely managed to churn out. He selflessly gave help to so many once-aspiring writers who've now gone on to become successful authors in their own rights. The evidence speaks for itself: Laymon knew exactly what he was doing.
What he did, for virtually his entire career, was give the literature-driven snobs of the day who refused to give horror a second glance because it was all so, well, horrible, that it couldn't possibly be art, exactly what they were expecting. If nobody was going to give horror props, if people were going to pretend horror was just dull-witted numbskulls running around with power tools chasing after big-breasted bimbos without an ounce of common sense, then Laymon was going to get in on the gag. "You think horror's absolutely beyond redemption," he asks of these nose-in-the-air sorts, "then that's exactly what you're going to read." Leave it to other writers to try and change the unchangeable minds of the highbrow crowd was his philosophy. And in the meantime, let's you and me have some laughs at their expense.
"The Cellar" is two slim, gore-soaked, nails-peeled-off, knuckles-shattered middle fingers to every snob on the planet who called out the horror genre (and its readers) for being so awful and hideous and vile. It absolutely is awful, and hideous, and vile, and beyond redemption. For this reason, I hate it...but in hating it I have no one to blame but myself. I could have stopped reading at any time, put the book away, and done something else with my time. But I didn't. Instead of focusing my time and attention on something else, I burned right through those pages up until the ending which, despite having not read it since 2003, I still remember to this day because it made me verbalize the most epic "you gotta be fuckin' kidding me" since John Carpenter's "The Thing".
Laymon wasn't kidding.
To prove it, he wrote two more novels and a novella set in this same Beast House world, and each one of them displays the same complete lack of shame and fucks that "The Cellar" does. Of course I read all three of them, because at some point they had to get better, right? They didn't, and once again, the joke was on me.
There's no cleaning up this particular cellar. It's befouled beyond contemplation, filled to the foundation with filthy characters doing even filthier things to one another, and there's not enough brain bleach in the world to take care of the problem. I will likely never read "The Cellar" again, because once was enough.
But Laymon wasn't writing "The Cellar" for me. He wrote "The Cellar" to make a point. An amateur, talentless hack literally could not do what Laymon did with this book. Talentless hacks have readers abandoning books early. It takes someone truly gifted, truly skilled, truly understanding in the art, to get readers to belly-crawl through a literary cistern, emerge on the other side, and understand that they went along for the ride willingly.
"The Cellar" is shockingly effective, and proof Laymon understood the power of words from the first paragraph of his first draft. It's a terrible book, beyond redemption by any stretch of the imagination, but by god, if you start it, you will finish it.
You'll hate yourself for doing so, and you'll have no one to blame but yourself. My two-star rating is indicative strictly of this. For sheer technique it's worth all five, but five-stars are reserved for the sorts of books I feel almost anybody could read and enjoy. Anybody who reads and enjoys "The Cellar" didn't get the joke, and I'm not interested in encouraging anyone else to go on that journey unprepared.
I've seen numerous critiques of Laymon over the years from people claiming he had no idea what he was doing, that he was a shit writer, he couldn't plot his way through a stroll in a park much less a novel, his technique smacks of rank amateurism that never improved all that much over a thirty-year career, he was a talentless hack. I understand where this critique comes from, but it's all a charade.
Laymon earned an MFA in writing. The guy taught other people to write as his day job. He produced more novels, short stories, novellas, and content during his all-too-brief life than anyone reading this review has likely managed to churn out. He selflessly gave help to so many once-aspiring writers who've now gone on to become successful authors in their own rights. The evidence speaks for itself: Laymon knew exactly what he was doing.
What he did, for virtually his entire career, was give the literature-driven snobs of the day who refused to give horror a second glance because it was all so, well, horrible, that it couldn't possibly be art, exactly what they were expecting. If nobody was going to give horror props, if people were going to pretend horror was just dull-witted numbskulls running around with power tools chasing after big-breasted bimbos without an ounce of common sense, then Laymon was going to get in on the gag. "You think horror's absolutely beyond redemption," he asks of these nose-in-the-air sorts, "then that's exactly what you're going to read." Leave it to other writers to try and change the unchangeable minds of the highbrow crowd was his philosophy. And in the meantime, let's you and me have some laughs at their expense.
"The Cellar" is two slim, gore-soaked, nails-peeled-off, knuckles-shattered middle fingers to every snob on the planet who called out the horror genre (and its readers) for being so awful and hideous and vile. It absolutely is awful, and hideous, and vile, and beyond redemption. For this reason, I hate it...but in hating it I have no one to blame but myself. I could have stopped reading at any time, put the book away, and done something else with my time. But I didn't. Instead of focusing my time and attention on something else, I burned right through those pages up until the ending which, despite having not read it since 2003, I still remember to this day because it made me verbalize the most epic "you gotta be fuckin' kidding me" since John Carpenter's "The Thing".
Laymon wasn't kidding.
To prove it, he wrote two more novels and a novella set in this same Beast House world, and each one of them displays the same complete lack of shame and fucks that "The Cellar" does. Of course I read all three of them, because at some point they had to get better, right? They didn't, and once again, the joke was on me.
There's no cleaning up this particular cellar. It's befouled beyond contemplation, filled to the foundation with filthy characters doing even filthier things to one another, and there's not enough brain bleach in the world to take care of the problem. I will likely never read "The Cellar" again, because once was enough.
But Laymon wasn't writing "The Cellar" for me. He wrote "The Cellar" to make a point. An amateur, talentless hack literally could not do what Laymon did with this book. Talentless hacks have readers abandoning books early. It takes someone truly gifted, truly skilled, truly understanding in the art, to get readers to belly-crawl through a literary cistern, emerge on the other side, and understand that they went along for the ride willingly.
"The Cellar" is shockingly effective, and proof Laymon understood the power of words from the first paragraph of his first draft. It's a terrible book, beyond redemption by any stretch of the imagination, but by god, if you start it, you will finish it.
You'll hate yourself for doing so, and you'll have no one to blame but yourself. My two-star rating is indicative strictly of this. For sheer technique it's worth all five, but five-stars are reserved for the sorts of books I feel almost anybody could read and enjoy. Anybody who reads and enjoys "The Cellar" didn't get the joke, and I'm not interested in encouraging anyone else to go on that journey unprepared.
elsshelves's review against another edition
2.0
Positives- intriguing story, crazy ending, unlike anything I’ve ready before and the ending did make me want more!
I really struggled to figure out how to rate this book. Although I enjoyed reading it, it felt messy and all over the place and the way some scenes/dialogue was written made me uncomfortable (not in a ‘ooo extreme horror/scary uncomfortable kind of way, but in a ‘I’m a bit concerned about the writers motives/intentions). For example, the random, unnecessary piece of dialogue that read ‘the girls going to get herself raped’- referring to a woman wearing ripped jeans and a strapless top? Tf???
And can we talk about how this woman has just found out her sister has been murdered by her abusive ex husband who sexually assaulted her 6 year old child yet continues to shag a a guy she barely knows THE SAME DAY whilst waiting for said ex husband to turn up??? W H A T!??
This was a 2.5 star for me. Had there been none of the sexual assault of minors (that added literally nothing to the story), I would’ve given a higher rating. But it just rubs me the wrong way that the author has included such a horrific topic for no reason- it didn’t heighten the story in any way, it felt irrelevant.
I really struggled to figure out how to rate this book. Although I enjoyed reading it, it felt messy and all over the place and the way some scenes/dialogue was written made me uncomfortable (not in a ‘ooo extreme horror/scary uncomfortable kind of way, but in a ‘I’m a bit concerned about the writers motives/intentions). For example, the random, unnecessary piece of dialogue that read ‘the girls going to get herself raped’- referring to a woman wearing ripped jeans and a strapless top? Tf???
And can we talk about how this woman has just found out her sister has been murdered by her abusive ex husband who sexually assaulted her 6 year old child yet continues to shag a a guy she barely knows THE SAME DAY whilst waiting for said ex husband to turn up??? W H A T!??
This was a 2.5 star for me. Had there been none of the sexual assault of minors (that added literally nothing to the story), I would’ve given a higher rating. But it just rubs me the wrong way that the author has included such a horrific topic for no reason- it didn’t heighten the story in any way, it felt irrelevant.
rschroeder88's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
1.0
brokenlyrium's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Gore, and Pedophilia