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3.19 AVERAGE
3.19 AVERAGE
I live in Iowa. I’ve lived in Iowa for 23 years. Darnielle masterfully detailed the general solitude and simultaneous small-town gossipy energy of low population Midwest towns. The soft, eerie quiet of driving through tiny, rural strip mall streets and then the shriek of wind blowing through cornfields as you push 70 down I-35. Everything was there. Everything was perfectly intact and in place and the malaise and the grief and thirst of exploration but the settling for okay. What an enchanting read. Until…what?
What is this book about? I get the big picture. I understand the nitty gritty. I feel the characters. A few meandering plot lines that are maybe supposed to snake together to completion in the end, but don’t? Not really, at least.
It’s so hard to describe a book that I really truly loved, and was so well written, and was so unsettling and suspenseful. But at the same time, I’m left so unfulfilled, so frustrated.
This book is going to get picked up by A24 in a few years and turned into some art house horror movie and I’m going to like it, obviously, but I won’t understand it, still.
What is this book about? I get the big picture. I understand the nitty gritty. I feel the characters. A few meandering plot lines that are maybe supposed to snake together to completion in the end, but don’t? Not really, at least.
It’s so hard to describe a book that I really truly loved, and was so well written, and was so unsettling and suspenseful. But at the same time, I’m left so unfulfilled, so frustrated.
This book is going to get picked up by A24 in a few years and turned into some art house horror movie and I’m going to like it, obviously, but I won’t understand it, still.
John Darnielle writes such beautiful prose. But this just wasn’t what I was expecting. I really enjoyed Part One and then it just lost me a bit. Didn’t help that I speed-read Parts 3 and 4 to finish it just barely in time for book club. But I was under the impression I’d be reading a horror novel, an impression strongly supported by Part One, and was just kind of disappointed with what I got, plot wise - again cannot emphasize enough how great the writing is! And it explores interesting themes for sure. Will re-read at some point when I can take it slower and really chew on what it’s giving me, without false expectations that surely soon something disturbing is going to happen, right? (The car crash was disturbing, but then I was right back to thinking that again, and nope, nothing else really happened).
So all the creepy stuff in this book appears to occur in my hometown, Collins, Iowa. Pretty sure i wouldn't have read it otherwise.
A couple of friends read it and found it disturbing; confusing. It didn't come together for them in the end.
It started off funny for me, then really creepy. But the second part got me going and it came together for me in the end.
And there were these truths about life where i grew up – everyone always talking about everyone else and the minutiae of their lives, where they are, what new job, etc. "It's not that nobody ever gets away: that's not true. It's that you carry it with you. It doesn't matter that the days roll on like hills too low to give names to; they might be of use later, so you keep them. You replay them to keep their memory alive. It feels worthwhile because it is."
This books captures the passage of time and the pain that sometimes comes with it, but is invisible to those who weren't part of it.
And i hope that wasn't the first house i lived in when i grew up in Collins. But i can't be sure.
A couple of friends read it and found it disturbing; confusing. It didn't come together for them in the end.
It started off funny for me, then really creepy. But the second part got me going and it came together for me in the end.
And there were these truths about life where i grew up – everyone always talking about everyone else and the minutiae of their lives, where they are, what new job, etc. "It's not that nobody ever gets away: that's not true. It's that you carry it with you. It doesn't matter that the days roll on like hills too low to give names to; they might be of use later, so you keep them. You replay them to keep their memory alive. It feels worthwhile because it is."
This books captures the passage of time and the pain that sometimes comes with it, but is invisible to those who weren't part of it.
And i hope that wasn't the first house i lived in when i grew up in Collins. But i can't be sure.
Well crafted. Great tension building. Not entirely sure what happened. But. I liked it? Maybe. Very eery.
I keep trying to decide how to review this book. I've read it through once, skimmed through several more times. Revisited scenes to try and make sense of them, to piece together this narrative into something that feels more like a story and less the truest interpretation of slice of life I've ever encountered.
This story didn't leave me feeling fulfilled or deeply moved or changed in some fundamental way. It left me feeling like I'd just talked with someone I've met a time or two for a couple of hours, got more info than I would've liked in some ways and not nearly enough in others, was left somewhat baffled at the choices made by the people they spoke about (themself included), but ultimately had a lovely time and wouldn't mind grabbing coffee again sometime.
Life can be confusing, it can jump around and doesn't always wrap up the way you think it's going to. Weird things happen in small towns, and weirder things happen when people are grieving.
As always, John Darnielle has a truly magical way with words, which turns a story into something that feels far more gruesome than it ended up actually being. Sometimes the best thrillers are the ones that aren't, actually. There's a kind of beauty in the anxiety, in the slow realization that not everything is CSI-adjacent, and sometimes people are just people and a messed up scene taped over a movie is just a messed up scene.
It moves slow as mollases and is definitely a YMMV on enjoyment. It took me a bit to decide whether I did or not. There's something kinda cool in the headspace it left me in though - and it's a book I definitely still think about even months after completing it. I will probably read it again.
This story didn't leave me feeling fulfilled or deeply moved or changed in some fundamental way. It left me feeling like I'd just talked with someone I've met a time or two for a couple of hours, got more info than I would've liked in some ways and not nearly enough in others, was left somewhat baffled at the choices made by the people they spoke about (themself included), but ultimately had a lovely time and wouldn't mind grabbing coffee again sometime.
Life can be confusing, it can jump around and doesn't always wrap up the way you think it's going to. Weird things happen in small towns, and weirder things happen when people are grieving.
As always, John Darnielle has a truly magical way with words, which turns a story into something that feels far more gruesome than it ended up actually being. Sometimes the best thrillers are the ones that aren't, actually. There's a kind of beauty in the anxiety, in the slow realization that not everything is CSI-adjacent, and sometimes people are just people and a messed up scene taped over a movie is just a messed up scene.
It moves slow as mollases and is definitely a YMMV on enjoyment. It took me a bit to decide whether I did or not. There's something kinda cool in the headspace it left me in though - and it's a book I definitely still think about even months after completing it. I will probably read it again.
The premise sounded so strange and promising but by page 64 I just couldn’t wrap my brain around what was happening.
I just finished this ten minutes ago and I could not even begin to tell you what it is about. From a cool and creepy premise of finding horrific clips spliced into rented VHS tapes comes a swift descent into confusion and impossible to follow banality with dreadful characters and the most convincing argument I have yet seen for burning down the entire midwest while we still have the chance. Darnielle, I adore you, but you lost me somewhere along the way.
I wouldn't normally say this, because anyone's experience of a book is subjective, but this is like emphatically not a horror novel, okay, don't believe the lies. It's creepy in places, the mood is very somber, but it is not a horror novel, it is naaaaaht. If you read this book hoping for a good horror novel you will make a "dafuq?" face that will stick with you for all eternity.
Nobody dies in this book, nobody goes through Bad Stuff, nobody's life is even threatened, unless you count a guy who gets in a car accident, and he doesn't get in a car accident because of horrors, okay, it happens because sometimes people are crummy drivers. I challenge you to find the "poor roadsmanship" costume at Spirit Hallowe'en, man, it's not going to happen.
People are weird and sad and do weird sad things, in this book, but with free will to all and harm to none.
I had some other issues with the book as well, but I'm so incensed by this main betrayal that I can't even be arsed to mention them.
Nobody dies in this book, nobody goes through Bad Stuff, nobody's life is even threatened, unless you count a guy who gets in a car accident, and he doesn't get in a car accident because of horrors, okay, it happens because sometimes people are crummy drivers. I challenge you to find the "poor roadsmanship" costume at Spirit Hallowe'en, man, it's not going to happen.
People are weird and sad and do weird sad things, in this book, but with free will to all and harm to none.
I had some other issues with the book as well, but I'm so incensed by this main betrayal that I can't even be arsed to mention them.
Fantastic second novel by Darnielle. Writing style is crisp and clean as always, and I loved how much goes unanswered throughout the book. Impressed! I found it interesting that so many people disliked the book. To me the narration was crystal clear, and the point of the book was what was left unresolved. Reading reviews here, it seems like people are really uncomfortable with uncertainty. That's what I liked about the book - no clean finishes.
I had to think about this one for a bit before writing a review. It's marketed as a horror, but it's definetly not. it's about the extent people will go to in order to keep someone they love alive, and what alive really even means. The structure was really creative, and Darnielle can write the most gorgeous and touching sentences. I think this book warrants a reread, because I think it'll have a different impact once you know the ending.