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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
An incredibly innovative spin on the haunted house trope. This epistolary novel will exite and terrify, and invites the reader to explore a time when psychology was still in its infancy and ripe with possibilities...and dread-inducing pitfalls. I look forward to reading more of Desiree's work in the future!
I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Caution: spoilers!
I was drawn to this book both by the cover art and the description. Who doesn't love a good ape/ghost crossover? I would give this book 3/5 stars.
I am a bit torn about this book. To start, I was not expecting the entire book to be excerpts from journals and diaries, letters to friends and family, and video transcripts. I wasn't crazy about the idea, but it ultimately had no bearing on my opinion of this book.
Smithy is such a sweet and beloved character, that I wanted to reach into the book and help him when things were scary. I find it a bit irritating that we never see whether or not Smithy is normal after leaving the house. I don't like that the ghost's identity, purpose, and further actions are never tied up for the reader. The book ended abruptly, without really explaining anything.
I came to hate the character of Doctor Piers Preis- Herald. He was emotionless, without empathy and compassion. He began by taking the study so seriously that nothing could convince him to stop it, and ended by selling Smithy to researchers, and apparently just cutting his losses. That, to me, was absurd.
Aside from some grammatical and editing errors, this book was worth reading.
I was drawn to this book both by the cover art and the description. Who doesn't love a good ape/ghost crossover? I would give this book 3/5 stars.
I am a bit torn about this book. To start, I was not expecting the entire book to be excerpts from journals and diaries, letters to friends and family, and video transcripts. I wasn't crazy about the idea, but it ultimately had no bearing on my opinion of this book.
Smithy is such a sweet and beloved character, that I wanted to reach into the book and help him when things were scary. I find it a bit irritating that we never see whether or not Smithy is normal after leaving the house. I don't like that the ghost's identity, purpose, and further actions are never tied up for the reader. The book ended abruptly, without really explaining anything.
I came to hate the character of Doctor Piers Preis- Herald. He was emotionless, without empathy and compassion. He began by taking the study so seriously that nothing could convince him to stop it, and ended by selling Smithy to researchers, and apparently just cutting his losses. That, to me, was absurd.
Aside from some grammatical and editing errors, this book was worth reading.
Welcome to the sleeper horror hit of 2021. Smithy is a rare animal: a debut novel handled with such panache that it fully deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the genre giants it so gleefully echoes.
Written entirely in epistolary form, Smithy the story of a group of Yale researchers attempting to teach a newborn chimp American Sign Language to prove a hypothesis that a non-human animal could express complex ideas if brought up in a setting that would encourage communication from a young age. Moving to Trevor Hall, a historic and run down mansion in Newport, the small group includes well known researcher Piers Preis-Herald, his assistant/proxy group leader Wanda, cameraman Jeff, and students Gail, Eric, Tammy, and Ruby. Much of the plot early on revolves around the group setting boundaries, expectations, and a routine for Smithy as they teach him new words in ASL each week and observe his growing ability to interact with environment and his companions. However, tensions and complications soon begin to rise within the group, as egos start to clash and disorganization soon sets in as Piers-Herald increasingly spends time away from Trevor Hall and delegates leadership to Wanda, who proves to be a rigid and unpopular leader. Smithy, growing in both strength and intelligence as time goes on also tests the group with frequent tantrums and erratic behavior in certain rooms in Trevor Hall. The group soon notices a bizarre tendency in Smithy to mistakenly make the sign for "woman" when they are pointing to innocuous things like an empty chair or a doorway, believing the chimp to be confused or acting out.
For such a lengthy book told in a relatively unconventional form, Amanda Desiree does a fabulous job by giving each of the characters a unique and discernable voice. This is done predominantly through the journal entries and research notes that detail the slow degradation of both the group and the study as conflict and unexplained occurrences begin to mount. The atmosphere of anticipatory dread remains strong throughout...it's not an exaggeration to say that this story stayed on my mind long after each time I closed it for the night as I pondered what was to come next for Smithy and his group of researchers.
The "haunted house" is perhaps one of the oldest and most worn of the horror tropes, and yet, it remains in my mind one of the ones that still retains the most potential in the hands of a capable and creative storyteller. There will never be a time where people won't look at an old, creepy house and wonder if it's haunted. It's ingrained in us to fear the unknown, the dark room, the locked attic. While there are plenty of tired paint-by-numbers stories on bookshelves, the trope is also home to a multitude of classics. Smithy is in a lot of ways indebted to the best of these, Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House. A few of the characters here are nearly dead ringers for those in Hill House, most notably Gail/Eleanor and Piers-Herald/Dr. Montague and the slow burning subtlety of the terror is similar as well. What allows Smithy to stand on its own is the ambition and intention to build upon what's come before instead of merely aping it. That's what's so impressive about what Desiree has done here. Smithy takes the trope and adds something completely different and unique to it. The result is a breath of fresh air for the genre and quite frankly the introduction of an exciting new voice on the horror scene.
**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Inkshares.**
Written entirely in epistolary form, Smithy the story of a group of Yale researchers attempting to teach a newborn chimp American Sign Language to prove a hypothesis that a non-human animal could express complex ideas if brought up in a setting that would encourage communication from a young age. Moving to Trevor Hall, a historic and run down mansion in Newport, the small group includes well known researcher Piers Preis-Herald, his assistant/proxy group leader Wanda, cameraman Jeff, and students Gail, Eric, Tammy, and Ruby. Much of the plot early on revolves around the group setting boundaries, expectations, and a routine for Smithy as they teach him new words in ASL each week and observe his growing ability to interact with environment and his companions. However, tensions and complications soon begin to rise within the group, as egos start to clash and disorganization soon sets in as Piers-Herald increasingly spends time away from Trevor Hall and delegates leadership to Wanda, who proves to be a rigid and unpopular leader. Smithy, growing in both strength and intelligence as time goes on also tests the group with frequent tantrums and erratic behavior in certain rooms in Trevor Hall. The group soon notices a bizarre tendency in Smithy to mistakenly make the sign for "woman" when they are pointing to innocuous things like an empty chair or a doorway, believing the chimp to be confused or acting out.
For such a lengthy book told in a relatively unconventional form, Amanda Desiree does a fabulous job by giving each of the characters a unique and discernable voice. This is done predominantly through the journal entries and research notes that detail the slow degradation of both the group and the study as conflict and unexplained occurrences begin to mount. The atmosphere of anticipatory dread remains strong throughout...it's not an exaggeration to say that this story stayed on my mind long after each time I closed it for the night as I pondered what was to come next for Smithy and his group of researchers.
The "haunted house" is perhaps one of the oldest and most worn of the horror tropes, and yet, it remains in my mind one of the ones that still retains the most potential in the hands of a capable and creative storyteller. There will never be a time where people won't look at an old, creepy house and wonder if it's haunted. It's ingrained in us to fear the unknown, the dark room, the locked attic. While there are plenty of tired paint-by-numbers stories on bookshelves, the trope is also home to a multitude of classics. Smithy is in a lot of ways indebted to the best of these, Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House. A few of the characters here are nearly dead ringers for those in Hill House, most notably Gail/Eleanor and Piers-Herald/Dr. Montague and the slow burning subtlety of the terror is similar as well. What allows Smithy to stand on its own is the ambition and intention to build upon what's come before instead of merely aping it. That's what's so impressive about what Desiree has done here. Smithy takes the trope and adds something completely different and unique to it. The result is a breath of fresh air for the genre and quite frankly the introduction of an exciting new voice on the horror scene.
**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Inkshares.**
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The epistolary format/collection of fictitious primary sources really worked for me. It felt like a fast-paced way to tell the story and examine the situation from a number of angles. The distinct voices in some of the sources helped me differentiate the characters and enjoy spending time with them individually. Every scene has some degree of conflict or helpful piece of information, and this shunted me through the story very quickly, since I consistently felt rewarded. However, it never really arcs into something. It never meaningfully confronts the questions it sets up or leaves us with even a moderately satisfying resolution. For the long swaths of time we spend with these characters, it wraps up incredibly quickly and not very believably. It feels like it never really knew where it intended to end or what it wanted to tell us about the possibility of a haunting. Perhaps this was for the sake of realism, but it didn’t ultimately work for me.
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No