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3.23 AVERAGE
3.23 AVERAGE
I loved Golden's "The Boys are Back in Town" and "Wildwood Road." This book was pretty good - another reviewer noted it's like a mid-grade Koontz - but as other reviewers also pointed out, there were too many characters fighting for main character status. Also, maybe it's just me, but I didn't get the ending.
Spoiler
So is Angela one of "them" now??
Great book! A page-turner in the Stephen King style. Not classic literature, but a fun ride! Didn't even see the ending coming!
slow & predictable, but had some intense scenes; would not recommend
All ghosts are ghosts of loss. You might think that Christopher Golden's Snowblind is about restless ghosts and the skeery ice monsters that live in whiteout snowstorms, and it is, but it's also a meditation on loss and how love is what really survives after death. Golden asks, what if you had a second chance at that love? And answers, that would mean you also had a second chance at that crushing kind of loss because, sadly, nothing is forever. The monsters in this book are scary in themselves, but not as scary as what they represent: the re-opening of old wounds, the inability to let go of the past, and the terrifying nature of inevitability.
Don't get me wrong, Snowblind is exciting and scary and vicious in places. An excellent horror novel that earns the comparisons to early King. But at its core is a beating heart of tenderness and longing for lost love. Snowblind is wonderful.
Don't get me wrong, Snowblind is exciting and scary and vicious in places. An excellent horror novel that earns the comparisons to early King. But at its core is a beating heart of tenderness and longing for lost love. Snowblind is wonderful.
Although totally out of the genre I usually read, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. To me, it seemed somewhere between Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock. The characters were what really made the story. I was engaged from the very beginning.
My criticisms of the story are few (SPOILER ALERT):
1. I preferred the vague descriptions of the ice men earlier in the book to the more detailed and graphic ones in the later chapters. I found the images I had in my head to be even more frightening than the way the author "fleshed" them out.
2. The death of the garage owner/plow driver did not make sense to me. I'm not sure why the author chose to include that section at all. This just did not fit the modus operandi of the icemen and did not advance the story in any way. Maybe he just hated that character and wanted to give him a gruesome end??
3. There were a few other details that were not consistent, such as the snowmobile accident story Dave told. If he put the stolen snowmobile back where he had taken it, then where was the snowmobile he told the police about to explain the accident with Angela?
Even with those criticisms, I would recommend this book, as an especially good one to read during a brutal winter such as the winter of 2013-14!
My criticisms of the story are few (SPOILER ALERT):
1. I preferred the vague descriptions of the ice men earlier in the book to the more detailed and graphic ones in the later chapters. I found the images I had in my head to be even more frightening than the way the author "fleshed" them out.
2. The death of the garage owner/plow driver did not make sense to me. I'm not sure why the author chose to include that section at all. This just did not fit the modus operandi of the icemen and did not advance the story in any way. Maybe he just hated that character and wanted to give him a gruesome end??
3. There were a few other details that were not consistent, such as the snowmobile accident story Dave told. If he put the stolen snowmobile back where he had taken it, then where was the snowmobile he told the police about to explain the accident with Angela?
Even with those criticisms, I would recommend this book, as an especially good one to read during a brutal winter such as the winter of 2013-14!
Twelve years after a historic blizzard that caused the death or disappearance of 18 people in the town of Coventry, Massachusetts, another big storm is looming, causing most townsfolk to be on edge, and leaving others acting very strangely indeed, you could even say, acting entirely out of character.
Snowblind by Christopher Golden centers around several members of the town who are still struggling in the aftermath of that long ago storm. Like Golden's more recent novel All Hallows, this one deals a lot in the interpersonal relationships between the residents of Coventry, but unlike that other book, I didn't find that the dramatic elements in Snowblind overshadowed the horror. There is a steady undercurrent of tension that has to do with fear and uncertainty, rather than which neighbor is sleeping around on their spouse or in love with the girl next door. That said, there were definitely some characters and storylines I enjoyed more than others.
There was a possession aspect to this novel that I didn't expect and found interesting, and Golden did a great job capturing the New England winter vibes, just as I'd hoped for when I opened this book. There were times when Snowblind dragged a bit, and there were a lot of loose ends, but on the whole this was a good winter read.
Snowblind by Christopher Golden centers around several members of the town who are still struggling in the aftermath of that long ago storm. Like Golden's more recent novel All Hallows, this one deals a lot in the interpersonal relationships between the residents of Coventry, but unlike that other book, I didn't find that the dramatic elements in Snowblind overshadowed the horror. There is a steady undercurrent of tension that has to do with fear and uncertainty, rather than which neighbor is sleeping around on their spouse or in love with the girl next door. That said, there were definitely some characters and storylines I enjoyed more than others.
There was a possession aspect to this novel that I didn't expect and found interesting, and Golden did a great job capturing the New England winter vibes, just as I'd hoped for when I opened this book. There were times when Snowblind dragged a bit, and there were a lot of loose ends, but on the whole this was a good winter read.
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This was a weird one for me- while I generally liked it enough to give it four stars (it kept me entertained, the pace was great, the prose was crisp), nothing BIG really happened. The book could've been cut in half and the result would've been the same- some characters could've been shed, some chapters with side plots removed, and the middle could've been almost entirely excised.
One disappointing thing about the novel is that the snow-monster/ice men things are never really fleshed out and explained. They're just the vague "evil" that populate a horror novel. I wish Golding would've gone more in depth with them and where they came from and why they seemed to be so focused on Coventry if they supposedly roamed the world.
Still, the basic plot was interesting and enough to keep me reading along.
One disappointing thing about the novel is that the snow-monster/ice men things are never really fleshed out and explained. They're just the vague "evil" that populate a horror novel. I wish Golding would've gone more in depth with them and where they came from and why they seemed to be so focused on Coventry if they supposedly roamed the world.
Still, the basic plot was interesting and enough to keep me reading along.
I really liked the spooky atmosphere set up at the beginning of this book. I also really like the characters and thought they were well fleshed out. Where this books falls apart for me is the end. I get the idea of a "final stand" in a book like this but punching and shooting at ice demons feels a little silly to me.