Words are difficult to come by in review of this novel, hence a brief review.
A largely negative aspect of this novel was in the beginning and ultimately the characters. Being stranded at an airport during a blizzard and wanting to see ones son can drive some people to challenge Mother Nature. But, Todd Curry's personality needed more refining: he acted too much like an atypical male; the elderly couple felt like tag-a-longs and even liabilities; Kate was basically a damsel in distress. Most of this novel was just a reaction to everything.
I did enjoy the monster, particularly the little girl without a face. I liked the monsters but they didn't leave much of an impression.
One aspect of the monsters that I did find interesting was that they had some "tourist trap" set up, hence adding intelligence to the creatures. The aspect of the monsters being part of nature itself was interesting, but I didn't stand out in my head all that much.
Malfi's novel had promise, if only it had gone through closer editing.
Rating: 2/5.
I agree that it is a bit hard to comment on this one, though I did find it to be entertaining, because the story was familiar and not too hard to think about, though some of the action scenes confused me and I ahd to look them over a couple times to see what happened. The monsters as well were a bit ambiguous in exactly what the hell they were. Were they Elder Gods? Aliens? Because they weren't spectral ghost figures as they were introduced. They seemed to be changing around to much.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I would disagree on is with Kate, because she seemed to be a little deeper and stronger than just a damsel. I found her to have enough strength and a balance with vulnerability that made her more three-dimensional than the others. Because the others were just there as bait and bodies. She was, for me, without a doubt the most interesting part of this book.
Aaron, I enjoyed it because it was an easy read, too. The characters were, for the most part, unlikeable and unbelievable. The ending was clichéd and the descriptions a little hard-boiled in places. The monster was creative, and I think that's what saved it for me. I wanted to learn more about it as the story went on. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot to learn.
ReplyDeleteMost importantly, I didn't hate life while I read it (I'm looking at you, Grave's End from last semester).