Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by xiaoliuan
Howl by Shaun David Hutchinson
2.0
I've been struggling with how to rate this book, and the answer is... I just don't know. I liked the plot, I liked the characters, but... god is the writing insufferable.
Hutchinson employs a stylistic technique that just, to me, does not work in the slightest. Rather than feeling like foreshadowing, we are beat over the head with the same phrases, over and over and over until I felt like I was going insane. This book had such a solid concept, but the way it came together was messy. It felt like the repetition easily takes up a fifth of the book, and that is not a good thing. If I have to hear "don't tell anyone" or "drink" one more time I think I'll actually go insane.
The ending twist was not even a twist. I was disappointed that the obvious villain from page 1 was, in fact, the villain. It felt like a waste of my time to throw so many red herrings in for no real reason.
At a risk of sounding like I'm victim-blaming, Virgil (our MC) is so passive that it just feels aggravating. I understand that the whole book is a metaphor for sexual assault, I understand that victims aren't perfect and often stick with their abusers to feed a sense of normalcy... but that doesn't work with the actual text of this book.
Because the text of this book is not its metaphor; there is no believable reason for Virgil to keep willingly attending all these parties with these homophobes who treat him terribly. With a weird closeted guy who he's sort of emotionally cheating with. For most of this book, Virgil just kind of lets things happen, embraces it even, then acts shocked when the obviously suspicious evil dudes are evil. Wow. And yet, despite the corruption and the evil that possesses the town, he stays because... he's made one friend, I guess. And that's worth all this evil.
To be honest, the more I think about it, the less I like this book. It feels like a lot of unnecessary grief with no resolution other than Virgil, still passive, deciding to just live with it to "not let them win"... but that isn't a good message to me when the choice is to live in misery.
A lot of the side characters have arcs and threads that end up going nowhere. It feels unfinished in that regard.
Overall this book had potential, but is unfortunately just not very polished.
Hutchinson employs a stylistic technique that just, to me, does not work in the slightest. Rather than feeling like foreshadowing, we are beat over the head with the same phrases, over and over and over until I felt like I was going insane. This book had such a solid concept, but the way it came together was messy. It felt like the repetition easily takes up a fifth of the book, and that is not a good thing. If I have to hear "don't tell anyone" or "drink" one more time I think I'll actually go insane.
The ending twist was not even a twist. I was disappointed that the obvious villain from page 1 was, in fact, the villain. It felt like a waste of my time to throw so many red herrings in for no real reason.
At a risk of sounding like I'm victim-blaming, Virgil (our MC) is so passive that it just feels aggravating. I understand that the whole book is a metaphor for sexual assault, I understand that victims aren't perfect and often stick with their abusers to feed a sense of normalcy... but that doesn't work with the actual text of this book.
Because the text of this book is not its metaphor; there is no believable reason for Virgil to keep willingly attending all these parties with these homophobes who treat him terribly. With a weird closeted guy who he's sort of emotionally cheating with. For most of this book, Virgil just kind of lets things happen, embraces it even, then acts shocked when the obviously suspicious evil dudes are evil. Wow. And yet, despite the corruption and the evil that possesses the town, he stays because... he's made one friend, I guess. And that's worth all this evil.
To be honest, the more I think about it, the less I like this book. It feels like a lot of unnecessary grief with no resolution other than Virgil, still passive, deciding to just live with it to "not let them win"... but that isn't a good message to me when the choice is to live in misery.
A lot of the side characters have arcs and threads that end up going nowhere. It feels unfinished in that regard.
Overall this book had potential, but is unfortunately just not very polished.