Church of Dead Girls Review

A Note: Chihani reminds me of Squall from Final Fantasy 8.

The novel focused too much on Chihani at first to the point I got bored hearing about him, but I wanted to learn about him through his own words and actions. The narrator seemed to betray his own characters and story by providing all the detail and keeping plot and story separate.

Chihani seemed the stranger from a strange land. His intellect was certainly his more fearsome aspect. His profile fits almost every real-life profile of a psychopath. He's well spoken, well educated, and yet, something about him was off. Early on in the novel, it seemed he and Franklin could be the killer, but Dobyns doesn't like to play fair in the beginning. Chihani’s cynicism gave way into some form of wisdom, which his peers didn’t take very well.

Chapter 5 is where the novel started to lose me. It went from 3^rd Person Omniscient to 1^st Person. Again, the reader is subjected to over saturation of details and background and the narrator seemed to forget to move on with the story.

Question: Just who the Hell is the narrator for the 1^st Person portions?

This switching between first and third person is just confusing as hell. It’s a nice twist in one regard, but it causes the narrative to go in two directions in some ways. One, it diverts attention form the matter at hand: the ritualistic murder of the three girls; two, it causes multiple narrative to occur at the same time. It does add complexity to the story, but also it adds a confusing aspect.

Dobyns may be guilty of being heavy-handed with details and his use of First-Person seemed problematic to me due to the detached feel to it. There's an atmosphere of distrust. I didn't trust the narrator, I seldom do.

Suspence in this novel is one of the stronger aspects. It goes between First and Third person, which can be a strength and weakness at the same time. The suspence, though great, was detrimental. By having what seems like several things going on at the same time, Dobyns focused more on suspence than actually having actual progress in the novel.

Perhaps one of the more chilling aspects of this novel is the familiar setting: A small college town is a powder keg, a place where atrocities are committed, and place where nothing happens at all. Aurelius is reminiscent of a prison of sorts, where conformity is standard and any deviation is seen as odd. Case in point: Franklin. His spiral into the deepest reaches of grief was enough of a concern that people could see his downward momentum. That was creepy.

With the all-too-familiar setting, Dobyns creates an uneasy feeling which is amplified by the use of the changing narrative perspectives. Perhaps it is this use of deceptive tactics in which Dobyns is most effective in this novel. The technique takes a reader into a maelstrom of suspicion as if the reader is part of this tale.

All things considered: this is a novel where more action is needed. It became boring. It turned into an episode of Criminal Minds, CSI, and other television series. The suspense was its strongest aspect, and yet its weakness. Chihani has his flaws, yet they were focused too much into the narration instead of the action.