If you're into detailed animal abuse

Didn't even finish listening... Lots of detailed animal abuse that I couldnt listen to.

6 people found this helpful

Gory with lots of animal cruelty

I didn't finish this. I was so tired of readying gross stories about awful things happening to innocent animals. I looked up the ending and I'm glad I didn't listen to the last 3 hours. What a depressing book.

5 people found this helpful

This is a mess

This book started strong enough. It started on PEI. So, for once I actually knew the landmarks and setting locations quite well. It went downhill from about there.

THE STORY:
Tonally and thematically, I don't think this book knows what it wants to be. It is technically written fine, but it tries to be a mixture of so many different pieces of media that it loses itself and becomes this homogenized mess of mediocrity. This is mystery, mixed with science fiction, mixed with drama, mixed with children of the corn, mixed with boring. It all felt so forced and awkward. That's why I don't want to say the book is well written. I don't think it is. But the book is at least competently written. The proper things are used in the proper places. They just aren't good.

The words and grammar are good, but nothing special. The writer uses a set up and pay off, but blink and you'll miss it. The characters, all of them, are unlikable. Things just happen, because. Everything that happens in the book is just too absurd to take seriously. Near the end of the book there is a literal super villain monologue about how the worms will inherit the earth. Like, nobody in the book is real, and the really don't feel real.

THE GORE:
There were two reason I bought this book. I really wanted something really intense and this book had both great reviews, and terrified comments. Most of the good comments were saying how gross the book was, how graphic. And the negative reviews were saying the same thing, but that it was too much. Well, I am pretty sure all the reviews were written by the children in this book, and have no life experience.

By the end of part one, I was still waiting for this horrific, scary, skin crawling book to start. All I had at that point was a group of semi dysfunctional boys, and the plot of Futurama where Fry eats the truck stop sandwich. And it was a slog to get that far. Near the end of part two, and the end of the book, I came to a realization. This book wasn't going to get good.

The book tries to go into excruciating detail about the things that happen in the book, but that is the only excruciating part. It drags scenes out for pages and pages, thinking it is making us squirm. One such instance is when they kill an animal for food, and the process of killing the animal is "so horrific", and "nothing like the movies". In the movies it is quick, but in real life there is blood and stuff, and things suffer if they aren't killed quickly, etc etc.

Well, yea. What did you think? I can understand the characters sort of not getting that, but the reader should live in reality and know "stabbing an animal and watching it slowly suffer to death" is a bad thing. So, it seems stupid for it to be a character moment, and we should already know so it comes off as just really terribly slowly paced pages upon pages of us finding out it was a bad thing. It would be like reading "and we watching my grandmother burn in her rocking chair for five minutes", while graphically explaining how her skin sloughs off. And on the final page of the scene they come to the realization that "Fire is indeed hot".

The other "graphic" stuff is mostly medical stuff (and explained as such, which doesn't make it overly gross or anything), or about worms. And yup, worms are gross, but that is about it. They aren't scary, and there really isn't any crazy body horror or slasher moments. Honestly, I think if you've ever lived on a farm (or owned a pet, or walked in the woods, or watched a medical documentary, or had kids, or...) then you've seen far worse than what most of this book has to offer.

THE KIDS:

I will keep this short. The kids are dreadful. But honestly, so is every character in the book. They start out as a group of young boys who are more or less friends. But they aren't friends, because these people know nothing about each other. These people aren't good people, but nobody in the group seems to know. Like one kid is comparable to Ted Bundy, with detailed scenes of him rubbing his dong because he is so hard from the violence, but nobody knows. Everyone is made of rubber. Being one character type in this scene, but another in another scene. "I am cowardly, I am brave now, but now abused, and now...". And when we get to witness the story from their point of view, it never feels right. It feels like an adult wrote some dialogue, then went and watched some kids be boys for a while (insults, gross out, stupid stuff). They then incorporated that into the story and said "there, characters".

But the characters all being unlikable, on top of being just completely off the walls, combined with the story that does the same (one story now, but now I'm this story...) makes this book feel bloated with bad things.

This book has worms.

4 people found this helpful

I wanted to like it

From all the reviews I really thought I would like it. Just terrible. No real story, just gross scene after gross scene.

2 people found this helpful

Kept me listening!

I really enjoyed this story. I found myself making extra time during my day, and before going to bed, so that I could listen to it more. I was prepared for the gross/gore factor from reading the reviews. It didn't bother me - I read and watch a lot of horror. But be aware that it certainly is very prevalent throughout the entire story, both to do with animals and humans.

The narrator was pretty good, although I found there wasn't a lot of variation between the different characters' voices. It didn't keep me from enjoying the book though.

2 people found this helpful

Too much animal cruelty

The book was ok, very interesting story and mostly ok characters. There was far too much attention drawn to animal cruelty though, and it was often needlessly lengthy. I don’t know if the intention was to make it extra gory and “scary” but it seems excessive. I love horror, I even like gore in my books and movies but I had to skip ahead several times. It’s basically torture porn for your ears.

1 person found this helpful

Horror at its best

This book hit me right where the snakes in my spine live and squirm. Very disturbing.

1 person found this helpful

Great horror novel

Some people thought it was to graphic, but I think it was just right for a horror novel. Keeps your attention, nothing to traumatizing.

1 person found this helpful

Absolutely Brutal but Beautifully written

Don't read this book hungry.

Beyond Interesting and poetry sewn throughout each page but incredibly hard to read. Lots of scenes in this book describe things in a way that you can feel which is a testament to the writing allowing a feeling of total dread to envelop you. I am often a fan of horror books but the descriptions of gore and tearing flesh left a sour taste in my mouth and I had to struggle to get past some scenes with long breaks and pauses. This book definitely was not written for my tastes but it was absolutely fascinating to listen to. Other reviews here warn of gore - Heed their warnings as I was perturbed several times and I do not consider myself one to shy away often.

great book

Great read! Lord of the Flies meets The Fly meets Cabin Fever. My only critique is that I wish the character development was more in depth, but given the length of the book I think it worked out. I just liked the characters and would have enjoyed more back story on them.