On Broken Monsters

Okay, it took me a while to get through this mother. At over 400 pages, it's certainly not the longest book I've read, but I found that it was a bit hard to get through.

The premise of the story kept me interested, but as I was getting near the end, I was like alright, we really need to wrap this shit up now, I want to move on. We centered on four seemingly main characters, Gabi Versado, her daughter, Layla, Jonno, who is an out-of town douchebag "journalist" who moved to Detroit to get a good story, and the bad dude, Clayton Broom. We're based in Detroit which is a bonus simply because it's a local story. For an author who lives in South Africa, she had some pretty solid contacts to make the scene believable.  Gabi is a Detroit homicide cop who comes across some gruesome murders, we're talking some freaky shit, like people cut in half and sewn to deer carcasses.

Layla and her best friend are stalking child predators and luring them in to meeting them so they can bust them and expose them for what they really are.

Clayton seems to be the hapless loser whose nightmares control him and force him to commit said murders, because his nightmares want attention... right.

Layla in her obstinate teenage angst ends up getting in trouble at school for defending her best friend's honor regarding some social media video that was shot of her at a party. Another reason it's wonderful that there was no such thing as social media when we were younger and why I weep for my boy. Layla beats the shit out of the kid that posted the video, we're talking knocking some teeth out and breaking his jaw. Of course, mom and dad of said victim want to sue the shit out of Gabi, but Gabi being a calm and collected officer of the law, diffuses the situation by informing them of the charges their son would face should the situation escalate.

Clayton and his "dream" end up hacking up three people. A young boy hanging out at a bus stop, he's the one that gets sewn to some deer legs, a nice pottery lady who runs a pottery shop similar to Pewabic Pottery. She gets shoved in her kiln and baked after she gets her feet chopped off. Finally, he pride and joy is a fellow officer of Gabi's, Marcus.

Meanwhile, Jonno meets some DJ, Jen Q. who exposes him to the different areas of the city that aren't so played out, like the old train station. She convinces Jonno that he should do a documentary of the grisly murders and he'll be catapulted to A-list status. I'm not going to lie, I loathed the very existence of Jonno, his character was the ultimate smarmy scumbag, and I wished he was one of the folks that got offed by the dream.

Basically, in the end, Gabi, Layla, Jonno, Jen Q, and some homeless dude, and Clayton end up at an abandoned car parts factory trying to track down a kidnapped fellow cop. Layla and the homeless dude are somehow entranced by the factory or the dream and they just don't know what the hell is going on. Jen Q dies a gruesome death by her own bird tattoos bursting out of her chest. Supposedly another victim of the dream. Jonno gets over her death quite quickly, records the whole thing and moves on throughout the factory. Marcus, the kidnapped cop is found to be dismembered with his face missing and is somehow reanimated by the "dream." Gabi shoots him to death, again, Clayton gets his brains blown out. It all ends well, right?

With my curt review, it certainly sounds like I didn't like this book. It was decent, it did keep my attention for quite a while, but as I said, I drifted a bit.

I just started the last book in the "Stephen King recommendation list", Day Four by Sarah Lotz. which will be your next review. I may consider another book on the recommendation list, Frankenstorm by Ray Garten, but maybe I'll save that for a birthday request.

I'm glad I made myself drift outside of my typical authors so that I could experience other writing styles and story-telling, but I find when I'm reading another author, I'm often longing for my favorites. All I've been thinking about is the new Stephen King book that is out TODAY, End of Watch which completes the Bill Hodges trilogy.

On Yet Another... Book Review with Spoilers

It's been entirely too long since I've graced you all with my smarmy musings. Or maybe you disagree. Maybe it hasn't been nearly long enough. In any case, admittedly, I've been slacking in the review department. I finished this book weeks ago and jumped right in to the next one, like a fiend looking for a fix, I just couldn't help myself. Since it has in fact been a few weeks since I finished this book, I'm almost certain I'm going to leave out some details, or some important part of the story that might make you all wonder, how the hell does she get anything done in the first place?

I will preface this whole review by saying, this is the first book on the "Fright List" that has actually been true to its hype. I've been looking forward to reading this one ever since I got my grubby little paws on it. I withheld reading it right away because I felt this one for sure was going to be good, and I didn't want to jump right in with the best one and then be constantly disappointed with the others on the list. So you see, I indulged in disappointment in the beginning, had a good story in the middle, and maybe I'll be wrought with more disappointment in the stories to come. Who's to say?

The POV is told by a grown-up little sister, Merry, who is helping a non-fiction writer write the story of her family. The story revolves around the Barrett family, a quiet New England family with two girls, one of which, newly teen aged Marjorie is thought to be a schizo. Then again, aren't most teenage girls considered schizo, in one form or another? All those hormones, all the drama! It's a wonder anyone gets out alive, but I digress.

Dad has been out of work for over a year. Of course this adds stress onto any family. With a seemingly crazy daughter, and therapist bills adding up, shit gets real, real quick. Marjorie and little sister Merry are inseparable. Now, I know this is fiction because what 14 year old wants to hang out with her younger sister? Marjorie progressively does weirder and weirder shit, which leads her church going father to believe that she might possibly be possessed by a demonic spirit. Again, we're talking about a 14 year girl, of  course she does weird shit.

With all the oddities and thoughts of their child being possessed, sure enough some story tellers and television producers come sniffing around looking to make a buck. Mom and Dad confer and decide that the family could really use some extra money, and this is just the thing to get them out of the hole. They agree to let a camera crew come in and follow their family around 24/7 with the hopes of catching some of the said "weird shit" on camera and making a series out of it. Reality TV is all the rage right now, right?

As time goes on, as we read about Marjorie and Merry confiding in each other, being sisterly, all that fun stuff. Marjorie comes into Merry's room in the middle of the night and pinches her nose shut until she gasps for air, writes gruesome stories to her in the notebook they share back and forth, you know, typical sibling stuff. At one point, Marjorie tells Merry she's just faking all her symptoms to make the TV show more interesting and to make Mom and Dad some money, but the best is yet to come.

As time progresses, Marjorie does more and more "demonic" things, such as talking with an entirely different inflection, contorting herself, the whole nine. Dad thinks it's time to get a priest involved an possibly have his daughter exorcised of the demons. Of course, this is perfect for the TV show. Viewers are flocking. The prep up to the exorcism is sort of drawn out, and I was like... come on, just get to it already! But, that's how us writers keep you on the hook, right? When we get down to the night of the exorcism, Marjorie gets tied down to the bed like most exorcism candidates do, don't want them hurting themselves or someone else, right? She then says she's not on board with the whole exorcism thing anymore, but the priests and dad are like... too late now! As it progresses, of course Marjorie breaks free of her restraints, stabs the priest, sending her little sister flocking from the bedroom in hysterics. There's a truly haunting scene where Marjorie is depicted as hovering over the second story banister watching her sister. In all actuality, she took a flying leap and ended up breaking her foot when all was said and done. Good job, dumb ass!

Flash forward to a few weeks after the botched exorcism. Marjorie pulls Merry aside and tells her that she thinks Dad is really the possessed one. She found all sorts of weird shit in the basement including an alter with some oddly telling "white stuff" sitting in the middle of it. She pocketed a small amount of it to prove it to Merry and told her she discovered it was arsenic. Daddy was planning on poisoning the family, she read about that kind of shit on the inter-webs. Marjorie says, "let's put a little in tonight's spaghetti dinner, just to teach Mom and Dad a lesson. Just enough to knock them out and bring them to their senses." Of course, she convinces Merry to dump it in the spaghetti pot while Marjorie is off distracting Mom. Of course, the kids plan on not having any sauce on their spaghetti because "their stomachs are sour." Come dinner time, Mom and Dad slurp up the spaghetti like any other day, and Marjorie lays the sauce thick on her own plate and starts gobbling it up. Naturally, Mom, Dad, and Marjorie drop dead leaving poor little Merry wondering if her family is just sleeping. It takes a few days of her hanging out with her dead family before the cops show up.

The novelist is floored by all this information as told by the grown-up Merry and is hoping for a best-seller with this newly released information. We're left with a pretty shocking final moment with the Barrett family that's actually pretty horrific. So yeah, maybe your parents are crazy, maybe your kids are crazy, who knows? Makes you want to sleep with one eye open and cook your own meals though, doesn't it?

While this was a fiction novel, it read like a non-fiction novel, which I really liked about it. It made me think The Amityville Horror which is quite honestly, the scariest book I've ever read. Of course, with my over-active imagination, I let my mind wander while I was reading the book and scared the hell out of myself while sitting in my bed with all the lights off. So, all in all, this book made its point, it got my imagination working and scared the piss out of myself. Good job, Paul Tremblay!

On Another Inconsequential Book Review

Your latest installment of mediocre book reviews features, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. This is her fifth book, but first successful one. Word has it that it's going to be adapted into a movie as well. Hey, maybe my fifth book will be a huge success... but I'm planning on making my second one a success. I digress however, let's get on with it.

This book revolves around the point of view of three women. The main character, Rachel, an apparently slightly overweight drunk who is divorced, has lost her job to drinking, but still commutes into London on the daily so her roommate won't give her shit about being unemployed. Then there's Anna, a perfect, blond haired specimen who was having an affair with Rachel's husband and inevitably ended up marrying him and popping out his baby. Finally, there's Megan, the also stunningly beautiful little waif who lives a couple doors down from Anna and (Tom, the ex of Rachel.)

Rachel, through her daily commutes into London on the train always passes her old house and the house of Megan and Scott. Though, since she's never met them, she calls them Jess and Jason. Every time the train trundles by, she sees "Jess" out on the balcony, reading, sipping wine, whatever, just having a fine time. She sees "Jason" dote on his wife adoringly. To her, these two are have the perfect life. One day however, she see some other man that is definitely not "Jason" manhandling "Jess". The next day, Jess/Megan has disappeared.

The POV of Anna is really background information. Let's be honest, no one really gives a shit about Anna. She's a spoiled little whiner. She won her man by banging him in a fancy vacant house she had listed... gross! She's exhausted by Rachel's constant appearance in her new life with Tom. Rachel calls a lot because she's still mourning the loss of her marriage. Rachel lurks outside their house, most of the time drunk. Dude, get a can of mace, you'll be fine.

We don't hear much from Megan despite the meat of this story being about her disappearance. Though, toward the end, we get to find out what really happened, even though, but then, you pretty much already know.

Rachel is key here because she recognized the man that was not Megan's husband and decides that she should reach out to Megan's husband, Scott to let him in on this information. Of course, the dude is furious, but he goes to the police with this information who promptly ask Rachel to come in and ID him to police, or the Bobbys, if you will. This dude was her shrink. Naturally, it came out that she was having an affair with him, so all fingers were pointed at this dude for her disappearance. Long story short, the shrink is relieved of charges, not enough evidence. So, as disappearing spouses go, the fingers then point to the husband.

Yes, yes, there is a lot of stress being accused of making your wife disappear. Rachel hanging around said husband all the time really isn't helping. At best, Rachel is considered an unreliable witness because she's a drunkard, especially considering the information she gave didn't turn out, and she lied about ever knowing Megan personally. Not to mention she hooked up Scott a time or two. However, Rachel is the last person to see Megan before she disappears, she thinks she was blotto though, so the events weren't particularly clear. She thought she saw him getting into a car with her shrink.

Here's the final summary, Tom, Rachel's ex, who she thought was so perfect, turns out to be an abusive prick. A lot of the time during their marriage, sure, she was drunk, after not being able to get knocked up or whatever, but what she thought was her being hammered was, in reality Tom knocking the shit out of her and blaming it on her drinking. Tom was also having an affair with Megan (this girl gets around) and Megan told him she was knocked up, though, who knows if it's Tom's baby, or her husband's baby. Tom tells her to get rid of it, she refuses, he gets all pissy and bashes her face in with a rock.

Rachel eventually recalls that it was Tom that picked up Megan the night she disappeared and went to warn his current wife, Anna. Naturally, Anna doesn't believe her, because well, it's crazy Rachel. However, Anna find out about Tom's affair with Megan. The two ladies confront Tom when he gets home from "the gym" and Tom proceeds to attack Rachel. Blah, blah, blah, Rachel gets the shit kicked out of her, and eventually comes to, to continue fighting with Tom. She runs out into the yard to try to garner some attention from anyone while Tom is trying to beat her to death. Anna comes to her aide and stabs her husband in the neck.

So, you've got two corpses in the end, everyone is sleeping with everyone, it's all pretty smarmy. It was a good read, a little predictable in the end, but overall, entertaining. I can't imagine the film adaptation will be a box office hit, but it might be a good matinee if you're still willing to pay $10.00+ to see a movie.