Reviews

Oh geez. What to say about The Supernatural Enhancements? This is a quality Halloween-season book.

There are mysteries and societies and a world full of supernatural occurrences that in turn spooked and enchanted me. You'll care deeply about the characters, and some of the sentences and descriptions are wonderful. The ending made me stay up too late on a work night and involuntarily slap the book.

It's not perfect. Mr. Cantero loves his ciphers, and parts of the book lose steam when he essentially goes into rant-about-cryptography mode. I would also frequently get bored during pages with all description and no dialogue. But these were just hiccups in an otherwise magical experience.

There is a skeleton playing poker somewhere out there and I MUST FIND IT.

twstdtink's review against another edition

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4.0

This book was unlike anything I've ever read before. Written in multiple formats, from play/script to notated, first person, third person, coded and lettered. There were many different spooky and mysterious elements that will have you guessing right up until the very end. It was a really fun read for October. The book also looks deceivingly large, if you get it in physical form (which I recommend). But, a lot of the pages contain very little writing. So, it's easy to whip through.

bmg20's review against another edition

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2.0

‘...all those pathetic lonely people fooling one another into their clumsy games of afterlife and cosmic relevance just to avoid noticing the nauseating sadness of their real lives. How could it sink that low?
That’s how I used to feel, bound by reason to boredom.
And then along came Axton House.’

The main character, known only as “A.” inherits Axton House, a mansion in American, after a second-cousin twice removed by the name of Ambrose Wells commits suicide by throwing himself from his bedroom window. Strangely enough, Ambrose’s father died the same way. At the same age. A. travels to America to get his affairs in order and with him comes Niamh, a mute teenager who communicates throughout the novel via notepad. The two soon immerse themselves in the mystery of the house which they find involves a secret society and many mysterious coded messages.

The Supernatural Enhancements is a Gothic mystery with a sole ghost and a strange sense of eclecticism. Unfortunately, it ranks right up there for me with The Quick in terms of absolute pointlessness. The story is told through various means including audio and video recordings, A’s day to day diary and a most disturbing dream journal, letters to an ‘Aunt Liza’, as well as various excerpts from books that they use in their research. It definitely had a Night Film feel regarding the unique way of telling the story but the story itself bounced around far too much and left far too much confusion in its wake. The strange codes that the two must unravel in order to progress further in solving the mystery should have been fun but instead I found them to be a tedious addition since us as readers had little to no chance of solving them ourselves so the pages and pages of detail regarding how they solved it only resulted in causing me a headache of epic proportions.

The characters themselves were mysterious and quirky but not in the most appealing way. We’re given very little detail on the two (other than the fact that they’re X-File fans which should have caused me to like them on that principle alone, but no) or anything about A. (or why he’s only referred to as A. because that’s just weird) or Niamh and their strange relationship; only that Niamh likes A. but she’s underage so it’s pointless. Or so we’re led to believe. The two sleep in a bed described as “big enough for each of us to throw an orgy without her guests disturbing mine”. And she apparently sleeps there because she’s there to protect him, which makes total sense.

Actually, it never ends up making sense. None of it does. The characters don’t make sense nor their purpose, the bad guys, or this secret society. The mysteries are seemingly explained but in a quick and careless way that is meant to be quirky and interesting but left much to be desired. The Supernatural Enhancements had a promising initial feel that, as Rory put, felt like “a lighthearted, simpler cousin” to The House of Leaves — just minus the use of mirrors. It regrettably fell flat for me.

I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.