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A review by catbooking
Red X by David Demchuk
3.0
The joy of forgetting why a book is on the TBR list!!
I want to start by saying this was the wrong time in my life to have picked this book up. I also want to add that I normally do not read horror. With the disclaimers out of the way, onto the review.
The first couple of chapters were great. I had all the chills and all the worries over the floor in the house creaking that one would expect from a horror book. However, after those couple of chapters things got less great. New characters were introduced that were kinda sort of connected to the overall story and old characters resurfaced but they did not feel like they were the same characters as before (Trevor and his diagnosis??!?!?) so they may as well have been new. With more characters the story became less focused more scattered and thus less impactful.
My other issue was the monster. At first, his behavior followed an expected set of rules which made him the perfect allegory for the dangers gay men faced simply for being gay. He was the scary thing that personified a physical threat when you meet a stranger for sex. He was the insidious poison that consumes you from within as AIDS would. But then, at about the halfway point, he started going after other people for the sin of merely existing in the same space as a gay person. Arguably one could say that both physical danger and AIDS is not limited to gay men, but then why focus on gay men at the start? If no one is safe than no one was ever safe.
I do not want to end this review without mentioning the sex. Maybe I am not the target audience but I often found myself wondering why the author felt the need to tell me about on character's long term relationship starting in a tub behind a gay bar during watersports. How did I benefit from this knowledge? Was it meant to shock me? Was it meant to highlight the promiscuous nature of gay men? Was it supposed to illustrate the danger inherent in so many casual liesons? Whatever the intent, eventually I quit worrying about their fates since they never appeared to be concerned about their own safety.
TL:DR for those who don't want to read my rant. Great start but fumbled the landing.
I want to start by saying this was the wrong time in my life to have picked this book up. I also want to add that I normally do not read horror. With the disclaimers out of the way, onto the review.
The first couple of chapters were great. I had all the chills and all the worries over the floor in the house creaking that one would expect from a horror book. However, after those couple of chapters things got less great. New characters were introduced that were kinda sort of connected to the overall story and old characters resurfaced but they did not feel like they were the same characters as before (Trevor and his diagnosis??!?!?) so they may as well have been new. With more characters the story became less focused more scattered and thus less impactful.
My other issue was the monster. At first, his behavior followed an expected set of rules which made him the perfect allegory for the dangers gay men faced simply for being gay. He was the scary thing that personified a physical threat when you meet a stranger for sex. He was the insidious poison that consumes you from within as AIDS would. But then, at about the halfway point, he started going after other people for the sin of merely existing in the same space as a gay person. Arguably one could say that both physical danger and AIDS is not limited to gay men, but then why focus on gay men at the start? If no one is safe than no one was ever safe.
I do not want to end this review without mentioning the sex. Maybe I am not the target audience but I often found myself wondering why the author felt the need to tell me about on character's long term relationship starting in a tub behind a gay bar during watersports. How did I benefit from this knowledge? Was it meant to shock me? Was it meant to highlight the promiscuous nature of gay men? Was it supposed to illustrate the danger inherent in so many casual liesons? Whatever the intent, eventually I quit worrying about their fates since they never appeared to be concerned about their own safety.
TL:DR for those who don't want to read my rant. Great start but fumbled the landing.