You don't want to get attached because you don't know who is going to survive. Now when you're reading a horror story there's a tendency for the reader to automatically distance themselves from the characters.
I like it when an author sort of nudges me and tells me what parts of the story I really need to pay the most attention too, and Sheff has some very subtle but effective ways of doing this. "There's a feeling like my stomach is trying to climb out of my throat." just so happens to be the first line in both the prologue and chapter one. We share only a brief moment with the first character before we are catapulted into chapter one, but the author makes sure you know that you shouldn't forget about what you read previously. I love a story that tries to creep you out right from the getgo, and the whole atmosphere of the prologue is meant to make the reader feel desperate and emotionally raw. The comparisons are obvious, but there's enough individual and unique detail thrown in to make this story its own.
I'll admit I started to go down the "been there done that" route, until Sheff sort of broke through the fourth wall and threw in a lot of The Shining references. The general premise of this YA story may sound a bit familiar winter and an oncoming storm, a quiet removed town, a family the lone occupants of a hotel, and the father's sanity questionable right from the getgo. HARMONY HOUSE, by Nic Sheff, didn't necessarily give me what I thought I wanted when I turned to the first page, but it can be nice to be surprised sometimes.
I really wanted a good old fashioned haunted house story.
0 kommentar(er)
