Scan barcode
krismoon's review
5.0
Highly recommend this book to speculative fiction fans! This is one of my favorite reads so far this year (2015). Great characters, great mystery. You won't get all the answers, but you'll enjoy unraveling the mystery.
rebecavleal's review
3.0
Carus & Mitch is the first horror short story I’ve ever read and I must say it made me a fan of the genre.
The closest thing I’ve read to this was Stephen King’s Under The Dome and they are clearly in two different levels but Tim Major’s writing and plot gripped me very tightly, regardless of this difference.
Mitch and Carus are amazing characters and their relatioship is very interesting to read about. But I do think the short story, even though being supposed to be short (duh!), would’ve benefited from a deeper exploration of their personality traits. It’s like showing the reader a piece of chocolate and not letting him eat it.
Now, trying not to spoil anyone: I think the ending could’ve been more intense and complex. Mainly because I built up such high expectations due to the gripping beginning and middle parts of the storyline. The idea of this two sisters living alone in a closed house, barricading themselves and being afraid of going outside is very inviting to the reader, or at least to me it was. I just had to find out why!
What I admired the most in Carus & Mitch, though, was Tim Major’s ability of writing a whole story (and spooky one furthermore!) with just two characters and still make it so gripping.
To wrap it up, Carus & Mitch was a reading I enjoyed quite a lot and would recommend if you’d like to start reading different and spooky book genres.
And keep in mind that looking at the chocolate is quite good already since that means the chocolate is there in the first place!
The closest thing I’ve read to this was Stephen King’s Under The Dome and they are clearly in two different levels but Tim Major’s writing and plot gripped me very tightly, regardless of this difference.
Mitch and Carus are amazing characters and their relatioship is very interesting to read about. But I do think the short story, even though being supposed to be short (duh!), would’ve benefited from a deeper exploration of their personality traits. It’s like showing the reader a piece of chocolate and not letting him eat it.
Now, trying not to spoil anyone: I think the ending could’ve been more intense and complex. Mainly because I built up such high expectations due to the gripping beginning and middle parts of the storyline. The idea of this two sisters living alone in a closed house, barricading themselves and being afraid of going outside is very inviting to the reader, or at least to me it was. I just had to find out why!
What I admired the most in Carus & Mitch, though, was Tim Major’s ability of writing a whole story (and spooky one furthermore!) with just two characters and still make it so gripping.
To wrap it up, Carus & Mitch was a reading I enjoyed quite a lot and would recommend if you’d like to start reading different and spooky book genres.
And keep in mind that looking at the chocolate is quite good already since that means the chocolate is there in the first place!
charshorrorcorner's review
4.0
I nabbed this from the Horror After Dark review list because I like what's going on at Omnium Gatherum. I've read a few books from them now and a couple of them have knocked my socks off. I include this novella in that category.
Carus and Mitch are the names of two girls living alone in a house. Their house is barricaded throughout and the girls only have access to a couple of the rooms. They have live chickens in the dining room. Their mother's locket hangs on the wall.
That's all I can tell you. Why, you ask? The fun that I had with this story was teasing out the truth of the narrative, and I don't want to spoil that for anyone else. I'm still not sure that I have all the answers, but I find as I'm thinking about the story now, a few more things have become clear. (Or have they? I'm not sure!) But I have always enjoyed ambiguous tales and this is definitely one.
I thought this story was well written and cleverly told. I expected answers that I wasn't given, and I liked that. I liked having to work a little bit to understand things. I enjoyed not having everything tied up in a pretty little package. In this way, Tim Major reminds me a lot of Greg F. Gifune and that's the highest compliment I can think of right now.
To summarize, I recommend this novella to lovers of ambiguous and sophisticated dark fiction. I call it sophisticated because this is more than just a straightforward story, it needs the reader's input to be complete. This reader loved it!
Carus and Mitch are the names of two girls living alone in a house. Their house is barricaded throughout and the girls only have access to a couple of the rooms. They have live chickens in the dining room. Their mother's locket hangs on the wall.
That's all I can tell you. Why, you ask? The fun that I had with this story was teasing out the truth of the narrative, and I don't want to spoil that for anyone else. I'm still not sure that I have all the answers, but I find as I'm thinking about the story now, a few more things have become clear. (Or have they? I'm not sure!) But I have always enjoyed ambiguous tales and this is definitely one.
I thought this story was well written and cleverly told. I expected answers that I wasn't given, and I liked that. I liked having to work a little bit to understand things. I enjoyed not having everything tied up in a pretty little package. In this way, Tim Major reminds me a lot of Greg F. Gifune and that's the highest compliment I can think of right now.
To summarize, I recommend this novella to lovers of ambiguous and sophisticated dark fiction. I call it sophisticated because this is more than just a straightforward story, it needs the reader's input to be complete. This reader loved it!
More...