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3.38 AVERAGE
3.38 AVERAGE
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Emotional abuse, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Confinement, Drug use, Physical abuse, Car accident, Alcohol
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
All I can say is that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I look forward to reading more books by Andrew Lennon.
Having read some of this author’s short stories, I knew what to expect when I picked this to read.
After an accident killed his dreams Dave spent his days drinking and smoking weed whilst watching horror films. A waste of space who expected his mom to do everything. After people in his neighbourhood and family start going missing, and the only clue is blood, Dave surprises everyone.
A slow start whilst you learn all about Dave and the reasons behind his lifestyle, but as soon after the 1st incident the pace picked up making you want to carry on reading and with 147 pages you can read it in one sitting. The scenes in the warehouse were subtle and whilst horrific, left the reader to use their imagination to the destructive ways the killer worked. I will just say that his artwork was not for the faint hearted.
My only complaint was there was not much known about the killer, and if there is not already I would enjoy reading a book just on the killer as I would be interested to see how he ticked. A quick read that for a couple of hours will have you cringing with some of the scenes.
After an accident killed his dreams Dave spent his days drinking and smoking weed whilst watching horror films. A waste of space who expected his mom to do everything. After people in his neighbourhood and family start going missing, and the only clue is blood, Dave surprises everyone.
A slow start whilst you learn all about Dave and the reasons behind his lifestyle, but as soon after the 1st incident the pace picked up making you want to carry on reading and with 147 pages you can read it in one sitting. The scenes in the warehouse were subtle and whilst horrific, left the reader to use their imagination to the destructive ways the killer worked. I will just say that his artwork was not for the faint hearted.
My only complaint was there was not much known about the killer, and if there is not already I would enjoy reading a book just on the killer as I would be interested to see how he ticked. A quick read that for a couple of hours will have you cringing with some of the scenes.
This was a great slow burn horror. It starts with a lot of backstory and slow build-up, but it's more than worth it. Once it takes off, it doesn't let go. While it's tempting to hate the main character, he grows on you as you seem him grow through the terror he faces. It's sufficiently gory and done in a way that it's not over the top or ridiculous. The killer is a great villain, and that's my only real complaint about it; I wished there was more story on the killer. All in all a great horror story.
I liked this, I thought it was going to be a supernatural type of story but it ended up going in a different direction. end ending was a to be expected, but it was still a good story.
First, thank you to the author for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.
First third of the story was a bit flat for my taste. There is a lot of background building to explain why Dave is Dave. He is portrayed as a real jerk – at best. I need someone to root for in a story. I loved flawed characters but they need some redeeming quality. Dave didn't have any. I understand why he is as he is. I don’t believe in second chances for the most part so his excuse for his decline doesn’t elicit any sympathy from me. There just wasn’t anything in the character development to cause me to think “poor guy”. Life's tough. Deal with it. I also didn't feel the circumstances that brought about the change in Dave were plausible. I need a center core of goodness (not there) to make that leap of faith. Dave needs more variety in his vocabulary. About everything he says seems to start with “Oh shit!” or “Holy shit!” Dave is also inconsistent. When he hears noises in his home he flip flops from scared to annoyed and back. If you really think you are going to be butchered, I think you will hit fear mode and stay there. There are a lot of holes in the story that are never answered.
The positives... the narrator did a good job. The premise of the story was good. If you can suspend belief, ignore the questions, and just accept it as is - it's a decently entertaining few hours.
First third of the story was a bit flat for my taste. There is a lot of background building to explain why Dave is Dave. He is portrayed as a real jerk – at best. I need someone to root for in a story. I loved flawed characters but they need some redeeming quality. Dave didn't have any. I understand why he is as he is. I don’t believe in second chances for the most part so his excuse for his decline doesn’t elicit any sympathy from me. There just wasn’t anything in the character development to cause me to think “poor guy”. Life's tough. Deal with it. I also didn't feel the circumstances that brought about the change in Dave were plausible. I need a center core of goodness (not there) to make that leap of faith. Dave needs more variety in his vocabulary. About everything he says seems to start with “Oh shit!” or “Holy shit!” Dave is also inconsistent. When he hears noises in his home he flip flops from scared to annoyed and back. If you really think you are going to be butchered, I think you will hit fear mode and stay there. There are a lot of holes in the story that are never answered.
The positives... the narrator did a good job. The premise of the story was good. If you can suspend belief, ignore the questions, and just accept it as is - it's a decently entertaining few hours.
This very short novel manages to pack a lot of ideas into its 162 pages. The central character, Dave, is portrayed from the start as a thoroughly unpleasant person. He basically sits around all day, forcing his mother to keep him and taking drugs. This existence is caused by a traumatic event as a teenager, when his promising athletic career was ended. (It's all very well for an individual to consider his existence to be "a life to waste", but this is making life very difficult for the others around Dave too.) Then there's an attack on his next door neighbour, before his mother disappears and the story seems about to turn to a horror version of [b:A Christmas Carol|5326|A Christmas Carol|Charles Dickens|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1165518693s/5326.jpg|3097440] for a while, before it becomes a more standard man-standing-alone-against-nameless-horror story.
A Life to Waste is perhaps best experienced in small chunks, so its division into very short, two or three page, chapters is sensible. Dave's character is extremely passive and repellent repellent at the start of the story, so a little goes a long way. His change into hero is not particularly believable, but at least offers a measure of redemption for him. That may not be the most interesting path he could take (as opposed, say, to Max Pyat's glorification in his unpleasantness in [a:Michael Moorcock|16939|Michael Moorcock|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1222901251p2/16939.jpg]'s quartet of books told by him), but it is at least less unpleasant.
Three factors may have contributed to me not liking A Live to Waste all that much. The character of Dave is one; while it may be interesting to read about unpleasant people, I don't choose to spend time with them in real life if I can help it, and I have to work hard to make myself read about them at length when they are the viewpoint character in a story. Being less passive, or having a more carefully written transformation into hero, might have helped here. This combined with the short chapters to make me read in short bursts, which made A Life to Waste seem bitty and unconvincing, something which might have been less the case if I had read it through in a single sitting. I often like reading novels where there are many ideas, finding it stimulating to do so, but here, probably because of the first two factors to a large extent, it seemed more like Lennon was flailing around trying to find anything which would make the tale more gripping.
As is often the case with books submitted to me for review, A Life to Waste is not the type of novel I would choose to read for myself; this means, of course, that others might well enjoy it more than I did. It is well written enough to suggest that a longer, less dislikable, story from Andrew Lennon would be well worth reading, but having worked through A Life to Waste, I would probably not spend the time in doing so but would be looking for something more congenial to me.
A Life to Waste is perhaps best experienced in small chunks, so its division into very short, two or three page, chapters is sensible. Dave's character is extremely passive and repellent repellent at the start of the story, so a little goes a long way. His change into hero is not particularly believable, but at least offers a measure of redemption for him. That may not be the most interesting path he could take (as opposed, say, to Max Pyat's glorification in his unpleasantness in [a:Michael Moorcock|16939|Michael Moorcock|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1222901251p2/16939.jpg]'s quartet of books told by him), but it is at least less unpleasant.
Three factors may have contributed to me not liking A Live to Waste all that much. The character of Dave is one; while it may be interesting to read about unpleasant people, I don't choose to spend time with them in real life if I can help it, and I have to work hard to make myself read about them at length when they are the viewpoint character in a story. Being less passive, or having a more carefully written transformation into hero, might have helped here. This combined with the short chapters to make me read in short bursts, which made A Life to Waste seem bitty and unconvincing, something which might have been less the case if I had read it through in a single sitting. I often like reading novels where there are many ideas, finding it stimulating to do so, but here, probably because of the first two factors to a large extent, it seemed more like Lennon was flailing around trying to find anything which would make the tale more gripping.
As is often the case with books submitted to me for review, A Life to Waste is not the type of novel I would choose to read for myself; this means, of course, that others might well enjoy it more than I did. It is well written enough to suggest that a longer, less dislikable, story from Andrew Lennon would be well worth reading, but having worked through A Life to Waste, I would probably not spend the time in doing so but would be looking for something more congenial to me.