Scan barcode
A review by motherhorror
Touch the Night by Max Booth III
5.0
Max Booth’s TOUCH THE NIGHT is everything one could hope for in horror fiction. It checks all the horror boxes for me. Which boxes are those, Mother Horror? I’m glad you asked.
The first and most important box for me is emotional investment. This can come in a variety of ways but the strongest vehicle for me is character development. If I can fall in love with the characters in a horror story, all the safe, warm and fuzzy feelings are off the table. That’s how I like my horror: Dangerous. Risky.
Immediately, I knew Max Booth III was gunning for emotional wreckage. He took his time developing the two, young protagonists straight away through authentic dialog and that sweet, sweet coming-of-age vibe we find in classic, Robert McCammon or Stephen King novels.
I felt my reader’s heart falling desperately in love with 12 year olds, Alonzo Jones and Joshua Washington even though they’re both up to no good. As a mother, I was worried about them from the get-go.
I marvelled at how Booth effortlessly slides into the skins of these youthful, African American boys as they speculate on everything from senseless police brutality to puberty issues. As a brief side note here: I think it’s brave for authors to step outside their comfort zone and write characters not of their gender, race or sexual orientation. Max gives the boys distinct personalities and voices that are probably not so different from his own childhood experience. He is able to infuse that context with the social injustices we all feel and blend this together to pen two very relatable characters. It felt scary to me, how much I was responding to them emotionally in so little time.
Obviously something bad happens to them. I’m not spoiling anything for you, right? This is horror. Horror is not kind to young people.
Alonzo and Joshua are not the only two characters here, given almost equal if not more page time, are the mothers of the two boys, Mary and Ottessa. These two are my new favorite women protagonists in a horror novel. Ottessa is just a natural born, loud-mouth, take-no-shit, badass. After certain events transpire, she teams up with Joshua’s mother, Mary who is the perfect counter weight to Ottessa’s unhinged persona.
The chapters with these two are laugh out loud funny. I read a few parts out loud to my husband because the dialog was just that colorful and memorable.
That was a long explanation of the first horror box. Well, the second one won’t take long because it’s TEETH. Does this book BITE??
Well, this book terrified me. There were scenes I had to stop reading in bed because I didn’t like the way it was making me feel moments away from having to feel all vulnerable in the darkness. The “bad guys”, the villains, are BAD. Ugly. Disturbing. Unpredictable.
Booth did not shy away from darkness. Let’s just put it that way and then leave it there. I feel like above all else in reviews, protecting the reader’s discovery of unique details is priority number one. I feel like I’ve described for you how I engaged with this one:
It was full blown emotional wreckage. It was dark and brutal. Unflinchingly scary. When I closed my Kindle on the ending, I immediately went to Max Booth III and told him I hated him. So I hope this expresses my true and honest feelings about TOUCH THE NIGHT. Basically, it will be a contender for best novel in 2020. It’s that damn good.
Mother Horror Blurb: Holy, dark pits of hell. Max Booth is so slick. Man! This book grabs ahold of you—forces that lump of flesh in your chest into a vice grip of emotional torture and you just plead for mercy. This book takes me back to some old school Stephen King days- those stories with flesh and blood characters you hopelessly fall in love with?? They have to fight the darkest evil and you pray for light. How will it end?
You MUST BUY THIS BOOK!!! Full review 2/19/2020
https://gingernutsofhorror.com/fiction-reviews/touch-the-night-by-max-booth-iii-book-review
The first and most important box for me is emotional investment. This can come in a variety of ways but the strongest vehicle for me is character development. If I can fall in love with the characters in a horror story, all the safe, warm and fuzzy feelings are off the table. That’s how I like my horror: Dangerous. Risky.
Immediately, I knew Max Booth III was gunning for emotional wreckage. He took his time developing the two, young protagonists straight away through authentic dialog and that sweet, sweet coming-of-age vibe we find in classic, Robert McCammon or Stephen King novels.
I felt my reader’s heart falling desperately in love with 12 year olds, Alonzo Jones and Joshua Washington even though they’re both up to no good. As a mother, I was worried about them from the get-go.
I marvelled at how Booth effortlessly slides into the skins of these youthful, African American boys as they speculate on everything from senseless police brutality to puberty issues. As a brief side note here: I think it’s brave for authors to step outside their comfort zone and write characters not of their gender, race or sexual orientation. Max gives the boys distinct personalities and voices that are probably not so different from his own childhood experience. He is able to infuse that context with the social injustices we all feel and blend this together to pen two very relatable characters. It felt scary to me, how much I was responding to them emotionally in so little time.
Obviously something bad happens to them. I’m not spoiling anything for you, right? This is horror. Horror is not kind to young people.
Alonzo and Joshua are not the only two characters here, given almost equal if not more page time, are the mothers of the two boys, Mary and Ottessa. These two are my new favorite women protagonists in a horror novel. Ottessa is just a natural born, loud-mouth, take-no-shit, badass. After certain events transpire, she teams up with Joshua’s mother, Mary who is the perfect counter weight to Ottessa’s unhinged persona.
The chapters with these two are laugh out loud funny. I read a few parts out loud to my husband because the dialog was just that colorful and memorable.
That was a long explanation of the first horror box. Well, the second one won’t take long because it’s TEETH. Does this book BITE??
Well, this book terrified me. There were scenes I had to stop reading in bed because I didn’t like the way it was making me feel moments away from having to feel all vulnerable in the darkness. The “bad guys”, the villains, are BAD. Ugly. Disturbing. Unpredictable.
Booth did not shy away from darkness. Let’s just put it that way and then leave it there. I feel like above all else in reviews, protecting the reader’s discovery of unique details is priority number one. I feel like I’ve described for you how I engaged with this one:
It was full blown emotional wreckage. It was dark and brutal. Unflinchingly scary. When I closed my Kindle on the ending, I immediately went to Max Booth III and told him I hated him. So I hope this expresses my true and honest feelings about TOUCH THE NIGHT. Basically, it will be a contender for best novel in 2020. It’s that damn good.
Mother Horror Blurb: Holy, dark pits of hell. Max Booth is so slick. Man! This book grabs ahold of you—forces that lump of flesh in your chest into a vice grip of emotional torture and you just plead for mercy. This book takes me back to some old school Stephen King days- those stories with flesh and blood characters you hopelessly fall in love with?? They have to fight the darkest evil and you pray for light. How will it end?
You MUST BUY THIS BOOK!!! Full review 2/19/2020
https://gingernutsofhorror.com/fiction-reviews/touch-the-night-by-max-booth-iii-book-review