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A review by obsidian_blue
Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
2.0
Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.
This was such a slow book with very little character development that just didn’t do it for me in the end.
Full review: I did not have much luck with horror books the past few weeks. I started "Horror Movie" more than a month ago and finally forced myself to finish it so I could move on. Honestly, I almost DNFed it a few times. There was nothing compelling to me about this book.
"Horror Movie" follows the only survivor of a horror movie from the 1990s. The narrator, is the so-called "Thin Kid" who played a kid in a movie called "Horror Movie" that starts to blur the lines between what is acceptable. We follow the back and forth between him in the past filming the movie, and in the present, about to be part of the 'reboot'. And then we also get to read the screenplay that the movie followed.
Eh. This wasn't good. Sorry, I can't really do books written as screenplays. I still to this day, have not read "Storm of the Century" because it started working my nerves too much. And this one wasn't that great because the screenplay gives you character motivations, etc. which I don't think any screenplay really does? I don't know. It just started taking me out after a while and I was so uninterested in it.
And I didn't really get the horror of the whole book/movie. We know upfront there was a tragedy and then it takes about 80 percent before we get there and it made zero sense and I maybe said okay and tried to move on.
The characters are shallow as anything. I didn't like "Thin Kid", Valentina, Cleo, etc. We never get enough time to spend with them to even really get what they are trying to do. The "Thin Kid" motivations for everything seem to change at the drop of a hat and I felt his character was just inconsistent.
The writing was so-so and the flow was pretty bad because of the above jumps between past, present, screenplay.
The ending was nonsensical. Yes, I understand what Tremblay was trying to do, I was just not that impressed with it and felt irritated. I honestly have only ever really enjoyed two of his novels and one stand alone short story. I may just need to move him to, you will never like him that much and stop reading his newest offerings.
This was such a slow book with very little character development that just didn’t do it for me in the end.
Full review: I did not have much luck with horror books the past few weeks. I started "Horror Movie" more than a month ago and finally forced myself to finish it so I could move on. Honestly, I almost DNFed it a few times. There was nothing compelling to me about this book.
"Horror Movie" follows the only survivor of a horror movie from the 1990s. The narrator, is the so-called "Thin Kid" who played a kid in a movie called "Horror Movie" that starts to blur the lines between what is acceptable. We follow the back and forth between him in the past filming the movie, and in the present, about to be part of the 'reboot'. And then we also get to read the screenplay that the movie followed.
Eh. This wasn't good. Sorry, I can't really do books written as screenplays. I still to this day, have not read "Storm of the Century" because it started working my nerves too much. And this one wasn't that great because the screenplay gives you character motivations, etc. which I don't think any screenplay really does? I don't know. It just started taking me out after a while and I was so uninterested in it.
And I didn't really get the horror of the whole book/movie. We know upfront there was a tragedy and then it takes about 80 percent before we get there and it made zero sense and I maybe said okay and tried to move on.
The characters are shallow as anything. I didn't like "Thin Kid", Valentina, Cleo, etc. We never get enough time to spend with them to even really get what they are trying to do. The "Thin Kid" motivations for everything seem to change at the drop of a hat and I felt his character was just inconsistent.
The writing was so-so and the flow was pretty bad because of the above jumps between past, present, screenplay.
The ending was nonsensical. Yes, I understand what Tremblay was trying to do, I was just not that impressed with it and felt irritated. I honestly have only ever really enjoyed two of his novels and one stand alone short story. I may just need to move him to, you will never like him that much and stop reading his newest offerings.