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theliteraryhooker 's review for:
Unbury Carol
by Josh Malerman
What a bizarre read...I really loved Bird Box, so when I heard Malerman had a kind of steampunk western twist on Sleeping Beauty, I was all over it. Turns out that maybe mixing so many genres wasn't such a great idea after all.
This is definitely an interesting idea. Carol suffers from a sickness that occasionally drops her into a coma-like state for days at a time, where it's nearly impossible to tell she's still alive. She can hear everything going on around her, but can't see or move. Once the only person other than her husband to know of her condition dies, her husband seizes the opportunity to bury Carol alive so that he doesn't have to live in his wife's shadow. Great plan, except it turns out someone else knows about her condition.
The book mixes way too many things together. There's some magic, maybe. The sickness, which is never really explained. A weird steampunk villain with tin legs. An environment that reminded me of Into the Badlands, but no explanation of why the world is that way. So much time is spent on cobbling all the different elements together that at times, the plot felt a bit like it fell by the wayside. The book felt too long and too short at the same time; not long enough to fully explain all the side elements going on, but too long for the plot not to feel artificially drawn out.
This definitely isn't Malerman at his best. It was an intriguing read, but it would be largely forgettable if not for the bizarre genre mishmash that I'm sure will stick with me for a while.
This is definitely an interesting idea. Carol suffers from a sickness that occasionally drops her into a coma-like state for days at a time, where it's nearly impossible to tell she's still alive. She can hear everything going on around her, but can't see or move. Once the only person other than her husband to know of her condition dies, her husband seizes the opportunity to bury Carol alive so that he doesn't have to live in his wife's shadow. Great plan, except it turns out someone else knows about her condition.
The book mixes way too many things together. There's some magic, maybe. The sickness, which is never really explained. A weird steampunk villain with tin legs. An environment that reminded me of Into the Badlands, but no explanation of why the world is that way. So much time is spent on cobbling all the different elements together that at times, the plot felt a bit like it fell by the wayside. The book felt too long and too short at the same time; not long enough to fully explain all the side elements going on, but too long for the plot not to feel artificially drawn out.
This definitely isn't Malerman at his best. It was an intriguing read, but it would be largely forgettable if not for the bizarre genre mishmash that I'm sure will stick with me for a while.