A review by motherhorror
Bleed by Ed Kurtz
3.0
This book came in a Nocturnal Readers Box last year. I remember Vince and Jessica (owners of the NRB) told me that this book was "strange horror".
When my friend Mindi said she was reading it this month, I jumped on board.
Strange horror indeed.
This is a difficult book for me to review because there's a lot I didn't enjoy but the things I did like about it are really important to me. For instance, the premise is insane and original. I doubt I'll ever read anything like it again--Kurtz created a monster that terrified me to the core. Last night, I had visions of it coming up my stairs before I drifted off to sleep...I had to push those thoughts far from my mind. So as a horror novel, it's successful. It scared me and entertained me.
Which leads me to the next thing I loved about it, the writing. Ed is a deft hand at spinning a compelling story in an effortless, fluid way. His storytelling voice keeps me engaged and turning the pages. Not once did I feel there were any gaps or dead space, the pace was perfect.
Now for some of the critical comments,
I'm not a huge fan of gratuitous gore and this book is page for page the goriest book I've ever read; carnage galore. A blood fest. It started making me a little sick to my stomach.
The book *is* titled Bleed, so I mean, no surprise that it's *bloody* but it's a lot. Too much for me.
I know that some people enjoy that so you know who you are and you can add this book to your list of bloodlusty books but there are readers like me who are fine with some, enjoy it even, but we have a line and this went beyond that. There are still others who don't like blood and violence at all and so I'll caution you to *not* pick this one up. *wink*
Secondly, I approach books with a real drive to form connections with the characters, I'm an emotional reader. I like horror stories to have developed characters so that the risk factor is really high for me, I'm emotionally invested in these people so I want to see what happens to them. In this book, I had a hard time with the characters. Walt and Amanda were not very interesting people *before* things took a turn so when Walt's motivations shift, I found myself not caring very much and I wasn't asking myself basic reader's questions, like why would this happen to a seemingly normal person? It was strange to not invest in Walt or his relationship with Amanda considering where the story ultimately takes them. I feel like that could have had so much more tension if I could have gotten a better sense of their personalities early in the building phase of the book.
Lastly, the subplot from the 1900s that is our introduction and is then threaded through the book was a bit over the top. I'm not sure I bought into that, or maybe I just didn't want to. I don't know, it was rough.
Overall, this book has for sure hooked me to read more from Kurtz. I own his book The Rib From Which I Remake the World so I'm excited to read that. I'm just not sure this is a horror book I can just generally recommend to everyone--it comes with a bit of hesitation so, for those reasons, I rated it a little lower. I think most horror fans are not also Gore-Fest fans, that's a specialized taste.
When my friend Mindi said she was reading it this month, I jumped on board.
Strange horror indeed.
This is a difficult book for me to review because there's a lot I didn't enjoy but the things I did like about it are really important to me. For instance, the premise is insane and original. I doubt I'll ever read anything like it again--Kurtz created a monster that terrified me to the core. Last night, I had visions of it coming up my stairs before I drifted off to sleep...I had to push those thoughts far from my mind. So as a horror novel, it's successful. It scared me and entertained me.
Which leads me to the next thing I loved about it, the writing. Ed is a deft hand at spinning a compelling story in an effortless, fluid way. His storytelling voice keeps me engaged and turning the pages. Not once did I feel there were any gaps or dead space, the pace was perfect.
Now for some of the critical comments,
I'm not a huge fan of gratuitous gore and this book is page for page the goriest book I've ever read; carnage galore. A blood fest. It started making me a little sick to my stomach.
The book *is* titled Bleed, so I mean, no surprise that it's *bloody* but it's a lot. Too much for me.
I know that some people enjoy that so you know who you are and you can add this book to your list of bloodlusty books but there are readers like me who are fine with some, enjoy it even, but we have a line and this went beyond that. There are still others who don't like blood and violence at all and so I'll caution you to *not* pick this one up. *wink*
Secondly, I approach books with a real drive to form connections with the characters, I'm an emotional reader. I like horror stories to have developed characters so that the risk factor is really high for me, I'm emotionally invested in these people so I want to see what happens to them. In this book, I had a hard time with the characters. Walt and Amanda were not very interesting people *before* things took a turn so when Walt's motivations shift, I found myself not caring very much and I wasn't asking myself basic reader's questions, like why would this happen to a seemingly normal person? It was strange to not invest in Walt or his relationship with Amanda considering where the story ultimately takes them. I feel like that could have had so much more tension if I could have gotten a better sense of their personalities early in the building phase of the book.
Lastly, the subplot from the 1900s that is our introduction and is then threaded through the book was a bit over the top. I'm not sure I bought into that, or maybe I just didn't want to. I don't know, it was rough.
Overall, this book has for sure hooked me to read more from Kurtz. I own his book The Rib From Which I Remake the World so I'm excited to read that. I'm just not sure this is a horror book I can just generally recommend to everyone--it comes with a bit of hesitation so, for those reasons, I rated it a little lower. I think most horror fans are not also Gore-Fest fans, that's a specialized taste.