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A review by inkyfingerspgs
Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
1.0
I received an advance copy of this book with my most recent Indiespensable shipment. Upon seeing the unique packaging and reading the blurb on the back, I was really excited to read it. The story sounded creepy and intriguing, so I began reading it right away. Unfortunately, it was neither of those things.
The plot held a lot of promise, but after setting up a spooky situation (odd scenes from apparent home movies are somehow spliced onto video tape rentals), the story veers off to follow different characters. Their actions eventually come together, but those separate storylines by themselves are quite dull. Ultimately, I don't think I really had a sense of who any of the characters were or why they were doing what they were doing. Their choices often seemed odd and unbelievable. At the end of the book, when all of the threads were woven together, I found myself thinking two things: "Yeah, right," and "So what?" The big reveal fell quite flat and the separate storylines felt forced together.
The only thing that could have saved a book like this would have been especially beautiful writing that I could admire independently of the plot and characters it was attached to. This book didn't have that either.
The plot held a lot of promise, but after setting up a spooky situation (odd scenes from apparent home movies are somehow spliced onto video tape rentals), the story veers off to follow different characters. Their actions eventually come together, but those separate storylines by themselves are quite dull. Ultimately, I don't think I really had a sense of who any of the characters were or why they were doing what they were doing. Their choices often seemed odd and unbelievable. At the end of the book, when all of the threads were woven together, I found myself thinking two things: "Yeah, right," and "So what?" The big reveal fell quite flat and the separate storylines felt forced together.
The only thing that could have saved a book like this would have been especially beautiful writing that I could admire independently of the plot and characters it was attached to. This book didn't have that either.