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uhhlexiconic's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
The extensive cast of characters are thinly and often offensively written and shunted between unrelated horrors that never allow the author to fully create a mood.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Rape, Racism, Fatphobia, Suicide, Death, Confinement, and Bullying
mikeroderique's review
adventurous
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
spookshow's review
4.0
I received a copy from the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Carnival of Fear happens in one night, it follows a bunch of teenage school kids through their worst fears after they all attend the same mysterious Halloween carnival, and if they don't succeed and overcome what they fear the most, the carnival could very well destroy the town, maybe even the world. Once in the carnival they all end up heading for the haunted castle attraction, gaining admittance just as the midnight bell tolls. The students find themselves in a castle with various doors, all with their own theme, from the Salem witch trials, to a zombie apocalypse, and even an alien invasion among others. To exit, they must go through every room and make it out. Can they do it?
So, when I first started reading this I was ready to straight up give it a 2 out of 5, the last quarter of the book has me bumping that up to a 3.5. The beginning moved kinda slow, but once the story hit roughly the 35% mark, the pace picked up a bit. Though I still feel like it took a stupid amount of time to get through the book, even when the pacing picked up. I'm not sure why that is...
In the beginning, we're introduced to a few different groups of kids, the stereotypical ones, you have the jocks and cheerleaders, the nerds, the stoners, and the perfect couple. When we're meeting all of these characters, I couldn't help but wonder why there was so many, even after finishing it, I'm still not too sure why there was so many, but I guess it kinda worked. Along with the stereotypical cliques, we had some stereotypical characters that grated on me pretty bad. We had the 'gangsta' African American jock, who seemed to take please in sexual harassment and rape, and who's dialogue was written in the stereotypical way, using words along the lines of "a'aight" and so on, which really annoyed me, I'm not really the biggest fan of writing accents like that in, that said, I believe that Hagrad's works perfectly and shouldn't be written any other way, so I'm not entirely sure why it pissed me off. We also had the Latino girl who's dialogue was peppered with "papi", "chica" etc, this also irritated me, see above. I just felt that this was pigeon holing these characters SO much, that they were pretty one dimensional, I understand that the author wanted to get his visions of these characters across, but it just didn't work for me.
At the start, the story has SO many paths in it that I had a little trouble keeping up, once the pace picked up around 35%, I found the stories easier to follow and they seemed to have become more linear, which made it easier to read. There was so much happening in this book, and I did enjoy it, but feel like the author could have gone over the story again and maybe done it differently? I'm not sure how it would've worked though because if each of the rooms in the haunted castle were divided up into individual novellas, I would've been so annoyed at not being able to follow straight on, yet it felt like there was sometimes too much going on in the novel. Once the characters all end up together it worked even better, and it was a great display of people being able to show their true colours in a life threatening situation, and realising that there is more to life than what happens at school.
I actually first thought that this might've been written for a younger audience, or perhaps been a creative writing assignment for school, then I realised that this was first published in 2010, and it began to make a bit more sense, I'm sure that the author has developed their voice a lot since this story's original release. The realisation that this wasn't written for a younger audience hit me in the face when the swearing made an appearance, and then shortly after, the various instances of rape. I had an "oh my" moment, then realised "yep, this is definitely geared towards an older audience."
I found myself becoming attached to a few of the characters and was rooting for them through the last two thirds of the book. The creatures were well written, and the individual room themes themselves were very well thought out and diverse which was great.
I'd be interested to read something more recent by this author as I feel they have a brilliant imagination and are not afraid to 'go there' with their horror themes.
Carnival of Fear happens in one night, it follows a bunch of teenage school kids through their worst fears after they all attend the same mysterious Halloween carnival, and if they don't succeed and overcome what they fear the most, the carnival could very well destroy the town, maybe even the world. Once in the carnival they all end up heading for the haunted castle attraction, gaining admittance just as the midnight bell tolls. The students find themselves in a castle with various doors, all with their own theme, from the Salem witch trials, to a zombie apocalypse, and even an alien invasion among others. To exit, they must go through every room and make it out. Can they do it?
So, when I first started reading this I was ready to straight up give it a 2 out of 5, the last quarter of the book has me bumping that up to a 3.5. The beginning moved kinda slow, but once the story hit roughly the 35% mark, the pace picked up a bit. Though I still feel like it took a stupid amount of time to get through the book, even when the pacing picked up. I'm not sure why that is...
In the beginning, we're introduced to a few different groups of kids, the stereotypical ones, you have the jocks and cheerleaders, the nerds, the stoners, and the perfect couple. When we're meeting all of these characters, I couldn't help but wonder why there was so many, even after finishing it, I'm still not too sure why there was so many, but I guess it kinda worked. Along with the stereotypical cliques, we had some stereotypical characters that grated on me pretty bad. We had the 'gangsta' African American jock, who seemed to take please in sexual harassment and rape, and who's dialogue was written in the stereotypical way, using words along the lines of "a'aight" and so on, which really annoyed me, I'm not really the biggest fan of writing accents like that in, that said, I believe that Hagrad's works perfectly and shouldn't be written any other way, so I'm not entirely sure why it pissed me off. We also had the Latino girl who's dialogue was peppered with "papi", "chica" etc, this also irritated me, see above. I just felt that this was pigeon holing these characters SO much, that they were pretty one dimensional, I understand that the author wanted to get his visions of these characters across, but it just didn't work for me.
At the start, the story has SO many paths in it that I had a little trouble keeping up, once the pace picked up around 35%, I found the stories easier to follow and they seemed to have become more linear, which made it easier to read. There was so much happening in this book, and I did enjoy it, but feel like the author could have gone over the story again and maybe done it differently? I'm not sure how it would've worked though because if each of the rooms in the haunted castle were divided up into individual novellas, I would've been so annoyed at not being able to follow straight on, yet it felt like there was sometimes too much going on in the novel. Once the characters all end up together it worked even better, and it was a great display of people being able to show their true colours in a life threatening situation, and realising that there is more to life than what happens at school.
I actually first thought that this might've been written for a younger audience, or perhaps been a creative writing assignment for school, then I realised that this was first published in 2010, and it began to make a bit more sense, I'm sure that the author has developed their voice a lot since this story's original release. The realisation that this wasn't written for a younger audience hit me in the face when the swearing made an appearance, and then shortly after, the various instances of rape. I had an "oh my" moment, then realised "yep, this is definitely geared towards an older audience."
I found myself becoming attached to a few of the characters and was rooting for them through the last two thirds of the book. The creatures were well written, and the individual room themes themselves were very well thought out and diverse which was great.
I'd be interested to read something more recent by this author as I feel they have a brilliant imagination and are not afraid to 'go there' with their horror themes.
superspecs's review
1.0
1.5 stars
Ugh, where do I even start. First lets talk about the good things. This book could have easily left out the carnival and the premise would have worked since 90% of it takes place in the carnival's haunted house attraction, but the set-up of the teens working their way through each of these themed rooms was fun and worked pretty well in it's execution. And despite not necessarily needing the Carnival theme, I did like the bits you got with the evil carnies. They were suitably gross and creepy.
And now, everything else. The characters were initially fun to read about even though they fell into every stereotypical caricatures of teens, but the farther into the book the more annoying they became. There was no depth or character growth. What you see is what you get and unfortunately what we got were sexist and racist stereotypes. Seriously, the asshole bully rapist was a black kid from the hood who spoke in AAVE (sort of) the entire time. And the only girl with any attitude was a "fiery" latinx girl who spoke in a random mix of English and Spanish.
And now let's talk about the sexism. An actual line from the book, "Even the girls put up more of a fight than you". At every turn the girls are depicted as needing protected. They never participate in planning, keeping watch, and almost never part of the fight unless they're being attacked. Every time one of the girls attempts to help in a situation one of the boys undermines her and the one time one of the girls is the one to figure out how to get out of a room, she has to sacrifice herself for everyone else.
And do I even need to discuss the vampire room? It was literally 50 pages of these kids being raped, one at a time. It was awful.
Ugh, where do I even start. First lets talk about the good things. This book could have easily left out the carnival and the premise would have worked since 90% of it takes place in the carnival's haunted house attraction, but the set-up of the teens working their way through each of these themed rooms was fun and worked pretty well in it's execution. And despite not necessarily needing the Carnival theme, I did like the bits you got with the evil carnies. They were suitably gross and creepy.
And now, everything else. The characters were initially fun to read about even though they fell into every stereotypical caricatures of teens, but the farther into the book the more annoying they became. There was no depth or character growth. What you see is what you get and unfortunately what we got were sexist and racist stereotypes. Seriously, the asshole bully rapist was a black kid from the hood who spoke in AAVE (sort of) the entire time. And the only girl with any attitude was a "fiery" latinx girl who spoke in a random mix of English and Spanish.
And now let's talk about the sexism. An actual line from the book, "Even the girls put up more of a fight than you". At every turn the girls are depicted as needing protected. They never participate in planning, keeping watch, and almost never part of the fight unless they're being attacked. Every time one of the girls attempts to help in a situation one of the boys undermines her and the one time one of the girls is the one to figure out how to get out of a room, she has to sacrifice herself for everyone else.
And do I even need to discuss the vampire room? It was literally 50 pages of these kids being raped, one at a time. It was awful.
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