Excuse Me, Is This Your Chainsaw?
From the first, we don’t like Chloe Bree. She’s a little too full of herself, as well as a touch shallow. She’s chosen her boyfriend because of the width of his shoulders (about as reprehensible as someone choosing a girl for the size of her breasts) and isn’t above blackmailing him to get her way. Yeah, she’s a winner.
Yet, now that we’ve got ourselves an unlikeable protagonist, we’re still horrified when a vicious attack occurs. Chloe nasty behavior does not in any way justify the terrible fate she meets at the hands of a character straight out of a slasher flick.
But the story swiftly shifts from her on to our main protagonist, the shy, horror-movie lover Alice. The author does a competent job of outlining Alice’s hopes, dreams, likes and dislikes. On the surface, she’s your stereotypically good girl but with certain bad-girl markers. She’s smart but suffers from inarticulation when meeting a cute boy. She’s shy but dresses for attention. She loves her sister yet feels hopelessly overshadowed by her. She doesn’t fall into easy categorization and that makes her an intriguing character, a bit different from your average YA female figure.
I liked Alice and could commiserate with her love of slasher flicks. Such movies aren’t my favorites but Alice’s rationalizations for her fangirl craving make her fondness for them relatable. She doesn’t just rate these films on their level of scariness; she digs into what makes them good, great or poor ones. She relishes and enjoys discussing camera angles, plausible dialogue and the artful building of tension just as much as the sight of a victim hung on a meat hook.
The story’s bait-and-switch tactic throws you for a loop, as does the chapter titles that count down towards the grisly event we’ve already witnessed. You wouldn’t think that this would work and yet, shockingly, it does. It’s reminiscent of Hitchcock, the grandmaster of suspense, as we wait to see what happened in the corn maze but from Alice’s point of view.
The ending is grisly but, once again, the author rapidly shifts us from the supposed victim to someone else. It’s a solid punch to the gut, one that lands unerringly on its target and leaves you breathless. Ms. Valentine displays a sure talent for what makes great narrative with genuine nail-biting suspense and blood-soaked horror.
Yet, now that we’ve got ourselves an unlikeable protagonist, we’re still horrified when a vicious attack occurs. Chloe nasty behavior does not in any way justify the terrible fate she meets at the hands of a character straight out of a slasher flick.
But the story swiftly shifts from her on to our main protagonist, the shy, horror-movie lover Alice. The author does a competent job of outlining Alice’s hopes, dreams, likes and dislikes. On the surface, she’s your stereotypically good girl but with certain bad-girl markers. She’s smart but suffers from inarticulation when meeting a cute boy. She’s shy but dresses for attention. She loves her sister yet feels hopelessly overshadowed by her. She doesn’t fall into easy categorization and that makes her an intriguing character, a bit different from your average YA female figure.
I liked Alice and could commiserate with her love of slasher flicks. Such movies aren’t my favorites but Alice’s rationalizations for her fangirl craving make her fondness for them relatable. She doesn’t just rate these films on their level of scariness; she digs into what makes them good, great or poor ones. She relishes and enjoys discussing camera angles, plausible dialogue and the artful building of tension just as much as the sight of a victim hung on a meat hook.
The story’s bait-and-switch tactic throws you for a loop, as does the chapter titles that count down towards the grisly event we’ve already witnessed. You wouldn’t think that this would work and yet, shockingly, it does. It’s reminiscent of Hitchcock, the grandmaster of suspense, as we wait to see what happened in the corn maze but from Alice’s point of view.
The ending is grisly but, once again, the author rapidly shifts us from the supposed victim to someone else. It’s a solid punch to the gut, one that lands unerringly on its target and leaves you breathless. Ms. Valentine displays a sure talent for what makes great narrative with genuine nail-biting suspense and blood-soaked horror.