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3.19 AVERAGE
3.19 AVERAGE
After reading Wolf in White Van, I thought to myself, “Huh. Maybe I’ll like Darnielle’s next book better.” I was wrong.
Sorry, John. Your writing is great but your storytelling is not. I’ll stick to your music.
Sorry, John. Your writing is great but your storytelling is not. I’ll stick to your music.
4.. I think? I have no idea what genre this is? Horror? Sadness? A series of terrible events?
I need time to kill this one over. My brain..
I need time to kill this one over. My brain..
Three imbricated families: two drawn in detail, one sketched. Thankfully Darnielle concentrates his considerable energies on the broken broods, Sample and Heldt, at the bleeding heart of the narrative. The Pratts (who seem like afterthoughts) are functionally a bow to tie things together for the reader and illustrate what it looks like when a nuclear family avoids nuclear annihilation which, as we learn from the others, can come from chance or choice.
A meandering story structure that doesn't offer a lot of answers to some of the most intriguing questions and goes on for pages and pages exploring some of the more boring details. I thing that is kind of the point? A meditation on all those nameless stories lost to time?
That was a wild ride. Beautifully written, but I have no idea what the fuck I just read (even more so than most things I tend to read). Starts out with a powerful sense of tension and dread and feels like its buidling into a horror story, and then just doesn't. But in a good way? Its hard to describe what it does turn into, but it's a great, thoughtful read.
It started out well and creepy, but then just ended up being sad. And the middle was filled with frustration jumping around narrators and wanting to know what was going on in the story.
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
how does this book starts and how does it end? I have no idea
In the vein of Paul Tremblay's last few novels, Universal Harvester is a heartbreaking examination of grief, with just a twinge of something darker around the edges.
Enjoyed this quite a bit more than Wolf in White Van. The way the story converges is very subtle, and perhaps a little disappointing to those who liked the creep factor of the book's slow build.