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I have very mixed feelings about this book.
I'm a horror junkie who loves me some Bigfoot—and, so, I was very excited to get this book when it came out. Max Brooks' World War Z was an interesting take on the zombie apocalypse genre, and so I wanted to see what he did with America's famous great ape legend.
And that's where the mixed feelings come in.
A lot of research went into this. Brooks is well-versed in the Bigfoot mythology. Everything shows up in here. Howling, whooping, tree-knocking, rock-throwing—it's all there. It also looks like he did his research on ancient great apes, like the Gigantopithecus. Because of this, the fictional interviews that appear in the book—mostly focusing around ape behavior—were fascinating and did a great job of ramping up the tension.
But the story itself? Eh. The book is supposed to be taken from a journal of a woman living in a small, isolated community in the shadow of Mount Rainier. The journal entries start out realistic enough; but they quickly devolve into just an ordinary first person narrative.
Here is an excerpt:
I feel strangely calm, alert, focused.
I'm ready.
Another howl. Closer.
Here we go.
No one writes their journals like this. I could give dozens of examples of passages like this throughout the book. At first, I thought that maybe it was on purpose. At the beginning of the book, it's hinted that people think the journal might be a hoax (since its subject matter is Bigfoot); and that would make sense—a journal that reads like a first person horror novel WOULD definitely set off "its a hoax" alarm bells. But, nope, by the end, it's made clear that the authorities and scientists believe its contents to be a real account of Bigfoot, so the journal itself is just... supposed to be written like that.
I get that Max Brooks likes writing these monograph-like novels that are supposed to read like a real world history book, or a book written by a journalist, but if you're going to write the journal entries as a first person story—just write the first person story. "Dracula" manages to tell its entire story off of scraps of letters and journal passages, so I think it isn't asking too much for Max Brooks to do the same.
The rest of the story is pretty typical of animal attack stories. Replace Bigfoot with wolves and you've got the plot of THE GREY, that one movie Liam Neeson did a few years back. Hell, even a few Sci-Fi Bigfoot movies have the same (or a similar) plot. And that's ultimately why this book is three stars. Well written if one can get past the unrealistic journal entries. Decent suspense, great action. But just an overall predictable and overdone plot.
3 out of 5.
I'm a horror junkie who loves me some Bigfoot—and, so, I was very excited to get this book when it came out. Max Brooks' World War Z was an interesting take on the zombie apocalypse genre, and so I wanted to see what he did with America's famous great ape legend.
And that's where the mixed feelings come in.
A lot of research went into this. Brooks is well-versed in the Bigfoot mythology. Everything shows up in here. Howling, whooping, tree-knocking, rock-throwing—it's all there. It also looks like he did his research on ancient great apes, like the Gigantopithecus. Because of this, the fictional interviews that appear in the book—mostly focusing around ape behavior—were fascinating and did a great job of ramping up the tension.
But the story itself? Eh. The book is supposed to be taken from a journal of a woman living in a small, isolated community in the shadow of Mount Rainier. The journal entries start out realistic enough; but they quickly devolve into just an ordinary first person narrative.
Here is an excerpt:
Spoiler
Fear and anxiety. I've lived with the latter all my life. Now it's gone. The threat is here.I feel strangely calm, alert, focused.
I'm ready.
Another howl. Closer.
Here we go.
No one writes their journals like this. I could give dozens of examples of passages like this throughout the book. At first, I thought that maybe it was on purpose. At the beginning of the book, it's hinted that people think the journal might be a hoax (since its subject matter is Bigfoot); and that would make sense—a journal that reads like a first person horror novel WOULD definitely set off "its a hoax" alarm bells. But, nope, by the end, it's made clear that the authorities and scientists believe its contents to be a real account of Bigfoot, so the journal itself is just... supposed to be written like that.
I get that Max Brooks likes writing these monograph-like novels that are supposed to read like a real world history book, or a book written by a journalist, but if you're going to write the journal entries as a first person story—just write the first person story. "Dracula" manages to tell its entire story off of scraps of letters and journal passages, so I think it isn't asking too much for Max Brooks to do the same.
The rest of the story is pretty typical of animal attack stories. Replace Bigfoot with wolves and you've got the plot of THE GREY, that one movie Liam Neeson did a few years back. Hell, even a few Sci-Fi Bigfoot movies have the same (or a similar) plot. And that's ultimately why this book is three stars. Well written if one can get past the unrealistic journal entries. Decent suspense, great action. But just an overall predictable and overdone plot.
3 out of 5.