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A review by motherhorror
Haven by Tom Deady
3.0
This book was probably my most anticipated read for my Season of Horror reading. I bought it a few months into summer so the excitement had a lot of time to grow. I found Tom Deady, the author, on Twitter-he posted his first novel had won the Bram Stoker award for First Novel! A big achievement in both horror and debut novels, in my opinion.
The blurb on the cover says,
"Haven is a big, generous, Stephen King-like small town boys vs. monster epic." and I also read somewhere that it was compared to IT and Summer of Night (Dan Simmons) both of which are favorite, epic, horror novels for me.
Getting about 100 pages into the book, I was already annoyed with the plot. It was way too similar to my favorite stories. I don't mind if a book is in the same vein or shares a vibe but to have so many of the elements actually featured as a main plot point is just annoying.
We have a sensible priest.
We have a small, seedy town.
We have child (and pet) disappearances.
We have some likable kids who are bullied by unlikable kids.
We have a monster lurking in some tunnels.
Which, to be honest, would have all been okay with me if the writing was pretty special or if I was scared. But the narrating was all over the place-jumping perspectives too much so that I never really invested in any of the characters--and there is a large cast of characters.
I also felt the story was padded to get to that 500+ benchmark of "epic horror" status.
There were chapters of this book and characters introduced that I felt were unnecessary to the story and made the pacing too slow to be scary or suspenseful.
I finished it though, which is why I rated it three stars instead of one or two. Because it kept me just interested enough to see what happened but it was like being satisfied with a giant bowl of vanilla ice cream and not enjoying something more unique in a smaller portion. Those are my thoughts. It was okay, just not great. And I need to go see what this book beat out in terms of that Bram Stoker award, now I'm curious!
The blurb on the cover says,
"Haven is a big, generous, Stephen King-like small town boys vs. monster epic." and I also read somewhere that it was compared to IT and Summer of Night (Dan Simmons) both of which are favorite, epic, horror novels for me.
Getting about 100 pages into the book, I was already annoyed with the plot. It was way too similar to my favorite stories. I don't mind if a book is in the same vein or shares a vibe but to have so many of the elements actually featured as a main plot point is just annoying.
We have a sensible priest.
We have a small, seedy town.
We have child (and pet) disappearances.
We have some likable kids who are bullied by unlikable kids.
We have a monster lurking in some tunnels.
Which, to be honest, would have all been okay with me if the writing was pretty special or if I was scared. But the narrating was all over the place-jumping perspectives too much so that I never really invested in any of the characters--and there is a large cast of characters.
I also felt the story was padded to get to that 500+ benchmark of "epic horror" status.
There were chapters of this book and characters introduced that I felt were unnecessary to the story and made the pacing too slow to be scary or suspenseful.
I finished it though, which is why I rated it three stars instead of one or two. Because it kept me just interested enough to see what happened but it was like being satisfied with a giant bowl of vanilla ice cream and not enjoying something more unique in a smaller portion. Those are my thoughts. It was okay, just not great. And I need to go see what this book beat out in terms of that Bram Stoker award, now I'm curious!