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baylady 's review for:
The Woman in Black: Angel of Death
by Martyn Waites
Disappointment.
The original Woman in Black is chilling, and has a place on my "Read every year - Halloween" shelf.
This book lacks that sense of growing dread, substituting a "who's next" kind of suspense instead. Since the book didn't make me care about the children, that "suspense" fell flat.
The main character seemed flat, and I couldn't be made to care much about her, either. The romance that bloomed between her and another character turned out to be merely a plot device - he's only there so that he can show up in the nick of time and rescue her. (And that's too bad, because his backstory made me care more about his fate than any other character.)
And what, exactly, does he rescue her from? The house falls apart, evidently the work of our infamous Woman in Black, although that ability was not part of the original, and makes little sense. The original was an entity insane with grief, but she had no superpowers.
The dead village children? Why would they turn into evil little monsters and attack the living children and their teachers? Again, a plot device that makes no sense. In the original, the village children are just dead - they don't become supernatural entities, malevolent or otherwise.
I will not be watching the film that this book is based on. The original Woman in Black was made into two films, and both were chilling and had an internal consistency that is sorely lacking in this so-called "sequel."
The original Woman in Black is chilling, and has a place on my "Read every year - Halloween" shelf.
This book lacks that sense of growing dread, substituting a "who's next" kind of suspense instead. Since the book didn't make me care about the children, that "suspense" fell flat.
The main character seemed flat, and I couldn't be made to care much about her, either. The romance that bloomed between her and another character turned out to be merely a plot device - he's only there so that he can show up in the nick of time and rescue her. (And that's too bad, because his backstory made me care more about his fate than any other character.)
And what, exactly, does he rescue her from? The house falls apart, evidently the work of our infamous Woman in Black, although that ability was not part of the original, and makes little sense. The original was an entity insane with grief, but she had no superpowers.
The dead village children? Why would they turn into evil little monsters and attack the living children and their teachers? Again, a plot device that makes no sense. In the original, the village children are just dead - they don't become supernatural entities, malevolent or otherwise.
I will not be watching the film that this book is based on. The original Woman in Black was made into two films, and both were chilling and had an internal consistency that is sorely lacking in this so-called "sequel."