30 October 2014

Review: Remnants of the Damned - Gavin Hetherington

As it's closing in on Halloween, I've been trying to creep myself out, and this book reads just like a classic horror film. It was perfect, but apparently I have a very tough skin.

The first book in The Abyssal Sanctuary Series is a standard horror story. There is a lot of bloodiness and a fair bit of gruesome gore. A lot of vicious attacks and a bit of murder and cannibalism, all in one city. Oh, and people in masks. However, if I had to rate the creepiness factor, it's about a 6 for me, but I have a feeling that reading all these bloodthirsty YA novels has had a hand in it, because the blood loss no longer scares me, and being hunted by things just means you have to fight back.

The narrative comprises of five viewpoints of the main characters, who all saw the aftermath of a murder at their workplace. Something connects all of them, and someone is trying to kill all of them, too. The book begins as a young girl if horrifically murdered in front of a crowd of people at a cafe, including her own sister, and the viewpoints culminate to one event, where they team up to find out what on earth is going on.

This book is seriously bloodthirsty and full of action, perfect for those of you who like a bit of gore. It is not especially frightening, though people are dying all the time in quite horrible ways. The thing it seemed to be lacking is character development. Although this is realistic, (because who on earth develops within 24 hours anyway?) it doesn't give the depth of character that we need to like and care about these five. You do root for them, but it is half-hearted as most of them seem too nice and innocent to be real. Maybe there will be more development in the next book as it seems like the town isn't quite done with them yet, and there is a lot being left unanswered here.

There were a few spelling a typo issues, but the most obvious one to me was 'smelt' instead of 'smelled'.

Overall this was a good read, but not exemplary. However, in a horror genre, I do not expect mind blowing things to happen, so this was fine by me. It was quite scary, but not enough to give me nightmares.

Kyrax

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