A review by chivalryxsword
Thirteen Chairs by Dave Shelton

dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

 

Spoilers below the cut but pre spoiler thoughts: Overall, I really liked the book. I think for a horror/ghost novel there could have been more tension. I just personally didn't find a lot of short stories scary, or the overall storyline scary. It was well written, but there wasn't a lot of fear involved for me. Overall rating: 3.5/5

This isn't going to be a usual book review, since this is a collection of short stories! so i'm going to just talk about the overarching story that goes along with the short stories, writing style, and then talk about how I felt about the short stories. 

Overarching Story: 3.5/5

I thought it was interesting, but definitely could've been stronger. It felt as if the overarching story wasn't really the point of the novel which, yeah it wasn't. However, if you're going to try to connect all your short stories together I'd like it to be a bigger deal. I was waiting for a more concrete "this is the point of these small in between scenes" to come, and I felt like that never really happened. Sure, you learn by the end what the purpose of everything is, but I thought it would have been more interesting if the more obvious ending had happened, like this is a waiting place/a holding area before going over to the other side. It just wasn't the most well thought out ending in my opinion. 

Writing Style: 3.5/5

While I liked the novel, there are just a few choices that I thought could've made the overall novel stronger. Some of the short stories felt a little straight forward and there wasn't a lot of built up tension. If I'm reading a scary story, I'd like to be scared. However, I was having a hard time determining if I wasn't scared because the writing wasn't doing that (building tension/having those scary moments) or because I've read a lot of horror novels before. Since the ghosts are supposed to be telling this story, I would've liked to have seen more of Jack (that main character)'s thoughts while they were telling the story, instead of afterwards. Seeing his thoughts afterwards didn't really add to the scariness at all, it kind of felt like a delayed reaction. However, I think all of the short stories were well thought and made sense, but most of them didn't scare me. 

Short Stories, ranked from my favorite, to least favorite (based more on personal preference than actual writing skills): 

The Patchwork Sailor

Among the Dead

The Wrong Side of the Road

Unputdownable

Oswald

The Girl in the Red Coat

Snowstorms

The Red Tree

Beneath the Surface

Let Me Sleep/Razor

Tick, Tick. Tick...