⭐⭐✩✩✩
Paul Tremblay has won widespread acclaim for illuminating the dark horrors of the mind in novels and stories that push the boundaries of storytelling itself. The fifteen pieces in this brilliant collection, The Beast You Are, are all monsters of a kind, ready to loudly (and lovingly) smash through your head and into your heart.
In "The Dead Thing," a middle-schooler struggles to deal with the aftermath of her parents' substance addictions and split. One day, her little brother claims he found a shoebox with "the dead thing" inside. He won't show it to her and he won't let the box out of his sight. In "The Last Conversation," a person wakes in a sterile, white room and begins to receive instructions via intercom from a woman named Anne. When they are finally allowed to leave the room to complete a task, what they find is as shocking as it is heartbreaking.
The title novella, "The Beast You Are," is a mini epic in which the destinies and secrets of a village, a dog, and a cat are intertwined with a giant monster that returns to wreak havoc every thirty years.
I am not sure if I read so much horror that I'm a bit more immune to the scares in horror books or if these stories were truly just underwhelming. I was not impressed with this book at all; in fact, I skimmed through some stories just to get through it. What I read was a proof copy, and ARC so I know it's not ready to publish but the run-on sentences were running rampant. The endings of most of the stories were lack-luster at best. If I had to pick a favorite story I guess it would be "The Last Conversation" because I liked the whole idea of it and it actually had a decent ending.
No comments:
Post a Comment