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findingmontauk1 's review for:
Unbury Carol
by Josh Malerman
First of all, thank you to the publisher for an Advanced Reader’s Copy for all seven of the Night Worms review group in exchange for honest reviews. This book officially releases on April 10th.
This is the first book by Josh Malerman that I have read, so I had no expectations or knowledge going into this story. It is about a woman named Carol Evers who has this dark secret: she dies over and over. But they are not really deaths, per say. They are more like comas where she is fully conscious of what is happening and being said around her. While only two people know of her affliction, her greedy husband Dwight who plans to bury her (alive) asap nad her long lost love, James Moxie, we are instantly thrown into a world of action and deceit.
Malerman’s writing style is so good that it makes the story even faster to read and you don’t even realize how quickly you are turning the pages to find out what happens next. The chapters are broken up quite well (and they header/font for them is cool, too!!) and that further increases the speed at which you can unknowingly read this book.
While the story’s main character is presumably Carol Evers, I couldn’t help but be even more fascinated by her long lost love, outlaw James Moxie, and the crippled hitman, Smoke, who has been hired to stop him from coming back to town. Smoke is one nasty sunnabitch! He is definitely someone I would never want to cross paths with, that’s for sure.
Malerman has a good “slow burn” book here that definitely builds. We get a map of the area where the story takes place. One end of the map is where Moxie is traveling from and the other end of the map is where Carol Evers is in her comatose state. As the book kept going, I constantly referred to the map to see just how many towns were left between Moxie and Carol. As the book got closer to the end, he got closer to Carol. And it made me increasingly more anxious as he got closer. I kept waiting to see if he would have a showdown with Dwight, Carol’s husband. And I kept waiting to see if Smoke would catch up to him and where and when and what would happen!? Malerman did a wonderful job of keeping that suspense at a great level.
One of the biggest distractions to me in the book was the overuse of a couple of phrases. I really don’t even know how to put my finger on why it irked me so, but I know that every time I read it I would be so anxious of when I would come across the word/phrase again that it almost pulled me out of the story a few times. I will let all readers see if they can figure out the words/phrases that I am talking about without putting any sort of preconceived notions out there.
In the end, I am giving Unbury Carol 4 out of 5 stars. The world that Malerman creates is indescribable. Is it modern? Western? Dark fantasy? Horror lite (I use the word lite because I actually thought this was going to be a scary story, because I had no idea what it was about before cracking that spine)? It’s almost like this beautiful blend of all of the above. I do recommend this book and I am definitely looking forward to seeing what else Malerman has to offer and get my hands on a few of his already-published books!
This is the first book by Josh Malerman that I have read, so I had no expectations or knowledge going into this story. It is about a woman named Carol Evers who has this dark secret: she dies over and over. But they are not really deaths, per say. They are more like comas where she is fully conscious of what is happening and being said around her. While only two people know of her affliction, her greedy husband Dwight who plans to bury her (alive) asap nad her long lost love, James Moxie, we are instantly thrown into a world of action and deceit.
Malerman’s writing style is so good that it makes the story even faster to read and you don’t even realize how quickly you are turning the pages to find out what happens next. The chapters are broken up quite well (and they header/font for them is cool, too!!) and that further increases the speed at which you can unknowingly read this book.
While the story’s main character is presumably Carol Evers, I couldn’t help but be even more fascinated by her long lost love, outlaw James Moxie, and the crippled hitman, Smoke, who has been hired to stop him from coming back to town. Smoke is one nasty sunnabitch! He is definitely someone I would never want to cross paths with, that’s for sure.
Malerman has a good “slow burn” book here that definitely builds. We get a map of the area where the story takes place. One end of the map is where Moxie is traveling from and the other end of the map is where Carol Evers is in her comatose state. As the book kept going, I constantly referred to the map to see just how many towns were left between Moxie and Carol. As the book got closer to the end, he got closer to Carol. And it made me increasingly more anxious as he got closer. I kept waiting to see if he would have a showdown with Dwight, Carol’s husband. And I kept waiting to see if Smoke would catch up to him and where and when and what would happen!? Malerman did a wonderful job of keeping that suspense at a great level.
One of the biggest distractions to me in the book was the overuse of a couple of phrases. I really don’t even know how to put my finger on why it irked me so, but I know that every time I read it I would be so anxious of when I would come across the word/phrase again that it almost pulled me out of the story a few times. I will let all readers see if they can figure out the words/phrases that I am talking about without putting any sort of preconceived notions out there.
In the end, I am giving Unbury Carol 4 out of 5 stars. The world that Malerman creates is indescribable. Is it modern? Western? Dark fantasy? Horror lite (I use the word lite because I actually thought this was going to be a scary story, because I had no idea what it was about before cracking that spine)? It’s almost like this beautiful blend of all of the above. I do recommend this book and I am definitely looking forward to seeing what else Malerman has to offer and get my hands on a few of his already-published books!