My Review and Thoughts:
This plays out a lot different than J.F. Gonzalez's first
novel Survivor that I read, which was mixed with nothing but hard core violence
throughout. With this one he chooses to build the characters in their everyday
lives, and struggles. The prologue as was in Survivor starts out perfect and
leaves you with enough horror to read on wanting more. The gifted talent of
weaving a story together, and holding the reader is something many authors
sadly fail at in that they just give filler to build more pages to the novel.
What Gonzalez does is weave the back story, the present soap opera drama to
build, and let you understand each player so they grow on you, and when
something happens to them, it feels more dramatic, and more appealing.
You have spent time with them, you have grown with them, he
builds up the character and so Gonzalez has given the emotional appeal to the
players, and when the horror hits the fan, it becomes more real to the reader.
Gonzalez's writing, as an author, explores the deep dark recesses of the inner
soul. His writing opens the deep portals of the ID and Ego, and Super Ego. He
lances the festering darkness in us all, spilling out the darker side of
existence.
His writing is monumental in its force, and blunt nature,
leaving nothing to the imagination of the reader. In this book his talent
showcases. I like reading in the dark with a book light giving it all the
wonderful effect. This book is very spooky, very dark, and mysterious, and
deep. I like how in this book Gonzalez gives just a little horror at certain
moments building up to the main showdown. Slowly the small bits cling to the
reader to continue down into the dark horror, waiting slowly to burst out from
the page.
You know how Alfred Hitchcock, and Robert Bloch's Psycho did
the famous shower scene, the viewer, or reader is dumb founded, and ends up
going, "wow" they just changed the movie, that is the powerful shock
appeal that floors the reader in this book. Gonzalez can push all the buttons
to start, as you turn each page, and then boom, boom, boom, a twist and turn
around every corner.
Gonzalez is a writing genius on many of his books. He is a
talented artist in the world of perfect imagination. This book mixes elements
of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the legend of the Succubus, and enters the
realm of the Vampire. This is, filled with an over the wall originality that
truly creeps out the reader. This monster is a new true monster icon. The
nameless, will forever be a part of my thinking pattern. I have learned
something from this book, and that's forget about online dating and hookups.
The whole book works, and Gonzalez does it again, a truly
original memorable book that will linger inside my brain forever.
My Rating: 4 out of 5