Horror Archives - Page 3 of 5 - Introverted Reader

Lisey’s Story by Stephen King: Book Review

Scott Landon, award-winning novelist, died two years ago. His wife, Lisey, is finally cleaning out his study. As she goes through his old papers, awards, and photos, buried memories come boiling to the surface. Then she gets a call from a man who tells her to hand over her late husband's unpublished work or face the consequences. What I love best about starting a new-to-me Stephen King is that feeling. If you're a SK fan, you know what I'm talking about. There isn't really a "getting into the story" phase. You're just in it. Right where he wants you to be. And right where you want to be: in the practiced but never predictable hands of a master storyteller. This one didn't let me down. I actually enjoyed this a lot more than Duma Key, the most recent King novel I've read. It's really sort of the story of a marriage: the good times, the bad times, the barely-got-each-other-through-it times. I loved that these characters had their own insiders language. I think most relationships have this, but it's hard for a writer to get it right. I felt like I was right in the middle of a real relationship where the magic words are bool, SOWISA, strap it on, smucking, and Boo'ya Moon. He really just got this so right. I even wondered if he was using catch-phrases from his own marriage. This quote struck me: "Lying in the bed that had once held two, Lisey thought alone never felt more lonely than when you woke up and discovered you still had the house to yourself. That you and the mice in the walls were the only ones still breathing." Don't go into this expecting the freaky, terrifying blood baths that everyone associates with Stephen King. He's grown past that.…

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King: Book Review

Life hasn't been easy for Dan Torrance since the events of The Shining. Now that he's an adult, his shining has faded a little but it's still too much for him to handle. Following in his father's footsteps, he's turned to alcohol to escape from his problems. He eventually hits his bottom and tries to turn his life around. He ends up in a small town in New Hampshire, where he senses a girl with a shining even bigger than his own. But a sinister group called The True Knot have sensed her as well and they know they would feast off the "steam" she would release if they could just get their hands on her to torture her to death. Dan and little Abra, with the help of a few friends, must find a way to defeat The True Knot and keep them from feeding off children with the shining. It's been 10+ years since I've read The Shining or watched the movie so I can't address how well Doctor Sleep compares to it. But I can tell you that I loved this book. My one complaint is that it does feel a bit as if it's meandering at times. It took a very long time to even bring Abra into the story. Eventually though, all of those little "tangents" tie into the bigger scheme of things. As the story twisted and I realized exactly how things were fitting together, I would just laugh out loud sometimes. Not because the story was funny but because I was delighted that King was taking me in directions that I did not see coming at all. That's starting to feel like a rare thing for me to find in an author. The book was much stronger for it as well. I liked…

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill: Book Review

Victoria McQueen, known at different times as Vic or The Brat, inadvertently discovers she has a special gift when she's about ten years old. If she wants to find something badly enough, she can ride her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike across a rickety wooden covered bridge and find whatever she's looking for on the other side. The problem? The physical bridge was torn down; she's creating a new one with her mind. After finding a kidnapper and helping to put him behind bars in her teens, Vic's life spirals out of control. She thinks she's crazy so she starts drinking and doing drugs, with stints in mental hospitals and rehab. But she gets her act together quickly when she finds out that Charlie Manx, the kidnapper, is no longer in prison. I thought I would probably get to this point after reading his other work but with NOS4A2, it's official: I love Joe Hill. He is a helluva writer. I'll be reading his books as they come out. Well, I've been doing that since Horns, but I'll continue doing it. I was hooked from very early on. I wouldn't even say that the pacing is all that fast, but it is a very steady burn. There's a lot of back story and filling in the blanks but it's all just so intriguing that I kept plowing through. I haven't been reading particularly fast recently but I still managed to tear through all 680+ pages in about ten days. And that's including a long, busy weekend out of town. What really kept me turning the pages was the big heart at the center of the story. Vic's tough but she had a rough childhood and she's had a rougher adulthood. She pushes everyone around her away but that's because she loves…

Graveminder by Melissa Marr: Book Review

Rebekkah Barrow has left the town of Claysville behind. She keeps in touch with a few people, including her "adopted" grandmother, but otherwise she's a free spirit roaming the earth. One day she gets a phone call that her grandmother has passed away. She heads back to Claysville for the funeral and learns that her grandmother was actually murdered. There's more to it than that though; Rebekkah and her on-again-off-again boyfriend Byron both sense it. There are secrets in Claysville, and Rebekkah and Byron must learn them before time runs out for everyone. This could have been so good. I loved the idea. The Barrow women are graveminders, assiduously tending the graves of the town residents. It's obvious from the beginning what is going on and I liked it. But the story just kept circling around and around and around the why of things. There's a lot of drama between Rebekkah and Byron, both in the past and their present. They fight, they make up, they decide they don't have time for fighting, and then they disagree again and have to have another "discussion." It was exhausting! But not in any kind of interesting way. Just in an "Oh my gosh, can we please just get back to the dead people now?" kind of way. I did actually like Byron. He was trying his very best to figure out what was going on, take care of Rebekkah, and respect her wishes. Rebekkah was my downfall. Deep down, she knew what she wanted but she kept fighting it and fighting Byron and I just got so tired of it. I didn't really care about her or her personal drama. I wanted to know why these crazy things were happening. The ending slightly redeemed it because it was fairly horrifying. There had…

In Odd We Trust by Dean Koontz: Book Review

In the small town of Pico Mundo, an unassuming fry cook by the outlandish name of Odd Thomas has a special ability; he can see the dead. They can't speak to him but they have their own ways of communicating. After the murder of a small boy, Odd sees his spirit wandering around. It's obvious the boy wants justice. His nanny, an old friend of Odd's girlfriend Stormy, is worried that the killer might be targeting her other charge, a young girl. Odd and Stormy vow to do what they can to help protect the children of the town. Odd Thomas has come to the world of graphic novels. I like the idea but it didn't work out all that well for me. I love Odd. He's so good and earnest but he still has that unexpected sense of humor and hope despite all the things he's seen. That Odd was in these pages, I just wanted more of him. I think the format limited him. In the novels, I think my favorite parts are his internal musings and it's got to be hard to bring that through in a graphic novel. There were bits here and there, just not enough. I wasn't a huge fan of the style of the artwork either. In my ignorance, I'll say it looks like anime. Feel free to correct me nicely if there's a better word to describe it. Whatever it's called, I just don't generally care for it. The story felt kind of--well, circular. They don't really get much of anywhere. It was the same basic events a couple of times and then a big "surprise" ending that wasn't really a surprise. I will say that it was nice to see a beloved character from the first book who hasn't shown back…

Duma Key by Stephen King: Book Review

Edgar Freemantle is a building contractor in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Then he is involved in a terrible workplace accident that leaves him with a brain injury and an amputated right arm. His therapist suggests that Edgar should get away from everything and get a fresh start. He tells Edgar to do something that makes him happy because he "[needs] hedges against the night." Edgar moves to Duma Key on the Gulf coast of Florida and takes up sketching. His only neighbors are an old lady and an eccentric ex-lawyer. Edgar takes up sketching and with amazing rapidity becomes a painter. The therapy is good for him, but strange things are happening on Duma Key. Do Edgar's paintings hold a clue to Duma Key's past and present? Really, this was 3 and a half stars. I tore through it, just like I tear through every Stephen King book I read. I liked the characters, especially Wireman, but it felt weird to read a Stephen King novel set in Florida. I'm no expert, but it seems like--if they're set in this world at all--his novels are always in Maine, or at least New England. Also, I sort of felt like this had been done before. The plot wasn't the same, but the same sorts of ideas show up in Charles de Lint's Memory and Dream (which I prefer to this one, by the way). I really hate to write this, but I'll be glad when Stephen King gets his accident written out of his system. I know, I know! That's easy for me to say. That's a life-changing, maybe even a life-shattering, event and I'm pretty much wishing that the guy would just "Get over it, already!" I feel heartless. But there it is. I do wish it would stop…

Watchers by Dean Koontz: Book Review

Travis Cornell is a man for whom life has lost all meaning. But on a hike one day, he runs into a golden retriever, somewhat battered, obviously friendly, but determined to protect him from something. Travis, a former member of the elite Delta Force, finds himself running in a blind panic with the dog. He takes the dog in and, after the dog displays absolutely amazing intelligence, names him Einstein. The two eventually become three when Travis meets lonely Nora Devon through Einstein. She joins with Travis in trying to protect Einstein from the mysterious being known as The Outsider. Unfortunately, The Outsider isn't the only one looking for the group. Can they all protect each other? Okay, this was Dean Koontz, so it almost naturally follows that I couldn't put it down. I fell in love with Einstein. The humans? Honestly, I could take them or leave them. But a dog with a sense of humor and a clear way to express it? Sign me up. Koontz usually does a good job with this, but I really liked the way that not everything was black and white in this novel. As scary as The Outsider is, he's not always the villain. In fact, he's postively heart-breaking in some scenes. Probably the only thing keeping me from giving this five stars was the huge amount of coincidence involved in Einstein managing to find an independently wealty Delta Force guy to live with. Aren't the odds better that he would find just a regular joe who would lack the knowledge, money and experience to protect him? Really, that's just a small thing, but it did periodically bug me. Overall, I recommend this for all Koontz fans, and really, for dog lovers who have ever wondered what their companions would say given…

From a Whisper to a Scream by Charles de Lint: Book Review

A serial killer has been viciously murdering women in the Combat Zone, a seedy area of Newford. He makes a mistake when he kills a wealthy man's daughter, apparently mistaking her for one of the prostitutes he normally targets. There's a witness to this one too. He swears the killer stepped out of the side of a building and disappeared the same way. Detective Thomas Morningstar has mostly left his Kickaha traditions behind on the rez. But something about these killers doesn't feel right, so he seeks help in the most unexpected of places. And then there's Chelsea, a teen who's already experienced a lifetime of hurt. She's been told that her abusive father is dead, but she can still feel him out there. Searching for her. And she knows this time he won't stop until she's dead. This is a re-read, and I wrote in my initial one-sentence summary, "This is too dark for me." I'm re-reading the Newford books in order, and it was time for this one. It's still too dark for me. I do like horror, but this is a little too real. The so-called "horror" element doesn't feel real, but the abuse is the true horror. It's nothing gratuitous, but it is more graphic than I would like. Being inside the mind of a pedophile left me feeling dirty and more than a little disturbed. It's hard for me to read that kind of thing at any time, but especially when it involves children. I miss that none of the Newford regulars showed up in this book. Part of what I love about the Newford books is spotting some of my favorite characters and finding out how they're doing. I know that sounds crazy, but after multiple re-reads of my favorites across 20+ books and…

‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King: Book Review

Author Ben Mears has returned to the town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, where he spent the best years of his childhood. He had a traumatic, horrifying experience there, and he wants to write it out of his system at last. Around the same time, two other men move into town, R. T. Straker and Kurt Barlow. They buy and move into the local house that has haunted Ben for years. And then people start disappearing... Parts of this felt a little familiar. Little Mark Petrie reminded me of Jake from The Dark Tower series and the kid from The Talisman. Ben reminded me of someone too, I just can't put my finger on who. And then there's the name Susan. I wonder if there's a Susan in King's past. That slight familiarity aside, I did enjoy this. I think part of what gives me the willies when reading King's work is that he doesn't back away from using children in his horror stories. He kills them off when he has to and he turns them into evil little beings too. He uses children to chilling effect in this novel. One of the subplots that I really liked was Father Callahan's struggle with faith. Maybe that's because I did read The Dark Tower series first, but I enjoyed "meeting" Father Callahan and learning more about him. His part in this book comes pretty late, so I'll refrain from discussing him more. I want to re-read his part in The Dark Tower now that I know more about him! I really liked that the vampires in this book were real, true, evil vampires. Granted, this was written in the mid-70s, well before the current vampire love story craze (not knocking it at all), but it's still refreshing to read right now. This…

The Ruins by Scott Smith: Book Review

Two American couples, fresh out of college, decide to go to Cancún for a little R&R before starting grad school in the fall. They end up venturing into the jungle, looking for some Mayan ruins and a fellow traveler's brother. They're completely unprepared for what they find there. I really, really want to give this two stars. That doesn't seem to be quite fair though, when I seriously read most of the book in one sitting, in bed, without even thinking about getting sleepy. The short sections instead of chapters, rotating through the characters' POVs, and the desire to see what happens next all combined to keep me rapidly turning pages. But the characters! Oh, the characters. They shouldn't have even had names. We could have called them Mr. Boy Scout, Miss Moody, Mr. Comedian, Miss Spacy, Outsider #1 and Outsider #2. That's about all the personality they got. What little they got beyond that was just enough to make me dislike them. I'm not sure if I was supposed to be happy when the first character died, but I was. "Yes! No more of THAT one, anyway!" is what I was thinking. Mr. Boy Scout was okay, but I don't think I was supposed to like him. It didn't seem like anyone else did. And the women! Useless, mindless, hand-wringing, complaining, argumentative, and just plain stupid. The guys were bad enough, but the girls were offensive to women everywhere. This next complaint might not make a lot of sense without spoilers, but I'll give it a try. There were some things that had to happen for the plot to play out the way it did, but they were frustrating. I was sitting there (well, lying there) railing, "If you don't want this to happen, why are you doing things…