A review by kalypsowolf
Dead Eleven by Jimmy Juliano

dark mysterious tense

4.0

If I could sum this book up in one word it would be accessible. If you are just getting into horror or maybe are a young horror loving teen who is just getting into full length novels, I would recommend picking this one up. It's unsettling and eerie without ever fully going into super scary territory. There's gore here and there, but it's not gratuitous and the descriptions of it are fairly mild in my opinion. But it is definitely still a step or two up from horror targeted at younger audiences and that's why I think it would be a nice bridge. If you don't mind a slow moving story, that is. 

Let's talk about pacing. This book is over 400 pages and it absolutely could have been chopped, but I'm not sure I wanted it to be. Even though some things were repetitive (I mean....probably intentionally tbh given the story) and occasionally became a bit of a slog to get through, I was thoroughly enjoying my time reading this. I think what helps it is that not all of the chapters are from the same perspective. We are jumping around in time, some of the chapters are written as letters or text messages, sometimes we get a one-off perspective that gives some insight as to what is happening on the island. The story crafting here is really well done, even if a bit drawn out.

The writing itself is nothing to write home about. It makes sense with R.L. Stine being the front cover blurb and the author having made his start on a horror subreddit. It's simple, straightforward. While youre reading, nothing is going to jump out at you as particularly great, but it's not going to be so bad at to distract you either. I found a few quotes I enjoyed enough to tab, but other than that it was mostly there to serve it's purpose and it does it well. Another thing lending to it's accessibility as you don't have to work hard to understand the words written. 

I went in knowing next to nothing about this book other than it's about an island seemingly stuck in the 90s and someone disappeared. I would recommend doing the same, if you can. The layers of the mystery of the island are done really well and have a very satisfying reveal. The horror elements are certainly there and present enough that yeah, this is definitely a horror book, but the mystery of it all is the driving force here. It's a combination that plays off each other well, horrifying reveal after horrifying reveal. None of which are particularly surprising, but not exactly predictable either unless you are a huge horror buff. 

Highly recommend, really enjoyable, super unsettling, will pick up this author again. 
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