Quick thoughts on some thriller/horror/suspense novels I've read recently
I’ve read a bunch of novels recently, so here are some thoughts on ‘em!
Just a reminder…
Paid subscribers to Kat Watches Everything get bonus content, PLUS the smug sense of self-satisfaction that they’re helping support the work I do! And I’d just really, really appreciate it. Last week, paid subscribers got an extra post about a horror movie called Aftermath, starring Twilight’s Ashley Greene and X-Men’s Shawn Ashmore:
Pretty much immediately, weird shit happens — the radio will be on downstairs in the middle of the night, a tap will turn on with nobody there, etc etc. One night, Shawn gets up to walk the dog, and Ashley thinks Shawn then comes back in and goes into the bathroom, but then Shawn ACTUALLY comes in, freaking her the fuck out. Of course, there’s nobody in the bathroom. As well, Shawn starts getting a ton of porn sent to him at the house.
And this weekend, I’ll be writing a bonus post about the first season of Netflix’s Sweet Tooth, which I finally watched! Click below:
And now, novels!
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton — I loved this! I love when people put new twists on a Groundhog Day plot. This follows a person who wakes up in the body of someone they don’t recognize, with no memories, but they’re at some large estate for a big party, and by the end of the night, the party’s guest of honour will be murdered. Each day, they wake up in the body of someone else at the party on the same day, and they only have eight iterations of that to solve the mystery. I can’t even imagine the headache of painstakingly putting together this plot, what with the main character meeting past and future versions of themselves and keeping track of who goes where, but it’s incredibly well done.
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz — This follows a washed-up novelist who is teaching a writing course in Vermont, and one of his students reveals to him the plot he plans to write a novel about, which is infuriatingly great. But then the student dies, and the novelist decides to take the plot and write the novel himself, to great success — but then he starts getting messages from someone who claims to know he stole the idea. If you’re into writing or the publishing industry at all, this is pretty fun, and the tension is well done. My main issue is that I was able to figure out at least part of what was going on fairly early on, though some of the actual details revealed later were a surprise. Still good!
Community by Graham Masterton — This was a terrible thriller that I still read all of because I wanted to find out what happened. After a car accident, a man wakes up with no memory in a small, idyllic town and is encouraged to become part of the community, although everyone is very vague and mysterious about everything that’s going on. The main character is very strangely written, as he’s both incredibly suspicious and too willing to go along with things, and the way the novel is written kind of undercuts the mystery somewhat. Also, Masterton has to be one of the most egregious “men writing women” offenders I’ve ever come across. I won’t quote it here in case you’re a glutton for punishment like I am and want to discover how bad it is for yourself.
The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes — This is the sequel to The Inheritance Games, a YA novel I really enjoyed. The original book is about a teen girl who’s living out of her car who finds out that a billionaire she’s never met has left her almost his entire fortune (and a DNA test proves they’re not secretly related or anything). The only stipulation is that she has to live on his estate for a year, along with his four very cute grandsons. Plus there are puzzles and riddles and secret passages! What I enjoyed about the first novel is that the main mystery was completely solved by the end of the book, but that it only opened up a whole new mystery for Book 2. Once again, there are a lot of clues to follow and things to solve, and plenty of romantic tension with cute patoots. As a grown woman, I would be unimpressed and annoyed with these boys’ mysterious behaviour, but as a teen I would have been all over it. Anyway, this was fun! (I know I didn’t reveal much detail about the second book, but that’s because I don’t want to spoil any of the first book for any of you who haven’t read it.)
Survive the Night by Riley Sager — What a disappointment this book was! I really enjoyed Sager’s previous novels, especially Home Before Dark, but this one features a heroine who makes stupid, baffling decisions right from the get-go. Plus, there’s a whole “what is real and what isn’t???” element that just gets frustrating, and by the end you find out that some things happened completely differently than they actually did. This was an infuriating read, and I hope Sager’s next book is better.
The Final Girls Support Group by Grady Hendrix — I’ve been reading a lot of Hendrix lately (I really, really loved My Best Friend’s Exorcism), and TFGSG was pretty good! It’s about a, duh, support group of women who survived terrible serial killer attacks more than once, and we get a bunch of wink-and-a-nod references to famous horror movies. But then someone starts killing off the members of the support group, and the main character goes on the run to try to solve the mystery. Some of the main character’s decisions are frustrating but not entirely out of character, and I appreciated that Hendrix didn’t take the group’s trauma lightly.
That’s all for me today, gorgeous! Talk to you soon.
Love,
Kat