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A review by trin
Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
1.0
Thomas Olde Heuvelt is obsessed with nipples. There are so many damn nipples in this book. Gross rotting witch's nipples, creepy sexual assault nipples, giant metaphorical nipples. The nipples of a teenage boy are also described in detail at one point. This dude LOVES (or possibly is deeply terrified of?) nipples.
What does he not care for? Characters.
Also, I feel like -- ladies.
There are four (third person) POV characters in this book.
1. Concerned father
2. Rebellious but kind-hearted teenage son
3. Sympathetic town official named Robert Grim (lol?)
4. Grotesquely fat and just generally grotesque crazy lady who's also sexually assaulted at one point for no reason, and hey have we mentioned she's disgusting and she makes everyone eat pâté that's super gross
Hmm. One of these things is not like the others!
But the dude characters are just as boring and one-dimensional as the nasty fat pâté lady. I did not care about anyone in this book. For a novel that's supposedly about a town, I had virtually no sense of anyone in the community. They were all cardboard cutouts with vaguely silly names. Like a silly haunted tram ride at Universal Studios.
The atmosphere was equally thin. This is the Hudson Valley -- Headless Horseman territory! -- but Heuvelt couldn't manage to make his woods sound threatening. Suspense didn't build so much as drag -- events occurred, but there was no ramping up of tension. There was no tension.
On the most basic level, this book simply wasn't as advertised. The plot is thus: back in ye olden days, this town called Black Spring killed a woman and her children because they thought she was a witch. She put a curse on the town and haunts it to this day. The book's blurb then states: "The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting."
That last part sounds cool, right? IT NEVER HAPPENS. Rebellious But Kind-Hearted Teenage Son makes videos and has a locked website, but nothing ever gets released to the world. Here's an anti-spoiler right here: no footage nor information nor any curses relating to the witch ever "go viral." This does not figure into the plot at all. I was looking forward to reading something about the interaction of technology and old-world magic, but aside from security footage mistakenly giving Heuvelt the impression that he could or should switch from past to present tense sporadically, none of this ends up having any effect on the story. There is a town. There is a ghost. Both kind of suck. The end.
Meanwhile, I cursed myself with finishing this book so you wouldn't have to. You're welcome.
What does he not care for? Characters.
Also, I feel like -- ladies.
There are four (third person) POV characters in this book.
1. Concerned father
2. Rebellious but kind-hearted teenage son
3. Sympathetic town official named Robert Grim (lol?)
4. Grotesquely fat and just generally grotesque crazy lady who's also sexually assaulted at one point for no reason, and hey have we mentioned she's disgusting and she makes everyone eat pâté that's super gross
Hmm. One of these things is not like the others!
But the dude characters are just as boring and one-dimensional as the nasty fat pâté lady. I did not care about anyone in this book. For a novel that's supposedly about a town, I had virtually no sense of anyone in the community. They were all cardboard cutouts with vaguely silly names. Like a silly haunted tram ride at Universal Studios.
The atmosphere was equally thin. This is the Hudson Valley -- Headless Horseman territory! -- but Heuvelt couldn't manage to make his woods sound threatening. Suspense didn't build so much as drag -- events occurred, but there was no ramping up of tension. There was no tension.
On the most basic level, this book simply wasn't as advertised. The plot is thus: back in ye olden days, this town called Black Spring killed a woman and her children because they thought she was a witch. She put a curse on the town and haunts it to this day. The book's blurb then states: "The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting."
That last part sounds cool, right? IT NEVER HAPPENS. Rebellious But Kind-Hearted Teenage Son makes videos and has a locked website, but nothing ever gets released to the world. Here's an anti-spoiler right here: no footage nor information nor any curses relating to the witch ever "go viral." This does not figure into the plot at all. I was looking forward to reading something about the interaction of technology and old-world magic, but aside from security footage mistakenly giving Heuvelt the impression that he could or should switch from past to present tense sporadically, none of this ends up having any effect on the story. There is a town. There is a ghost. Both kind of suck. The end.
Meanwhile, I cursed myself with finishing this book so you wouldn't have to. You're welcome.