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Post by trentsketch on Jun 20, 2008 18:59:01 GMT -5
Has anyone else read Sarah Langan's debut and follow-up novels yet? I really enjoyed The Keeper. It's strong third person narrative focusing in on a different character in each chapter. The arc of the story is great, following the town's changing reaction to the outsider, and her own actions against them. It's a credit to Langan that the story is so easy to follow because she does follow so many characters and digs into some interesting themes/topics. It's a ghost story without a definable specter, for the ghost is the lost hope of the collective town. My issues came with The Missing. I couldn't finish it. A lot of reviews compare Langan to King, and it was clearer in the second book why. She isn't afraid to write about bad people and tell you everything. The issue for me was how much she revealed right away about the people. If I don't care for any of the characters, I'm not really going to care what happens to them. Plus, child killing in the first fifty pages? How...unnecessary. The spoiler's not that big, but it was a huge turnoff to me. I went two chapters past the point and returned the book to the library. It was what I call the Pet Semetary reaction: something so awful happens in such graphic detail near the beginning of the novel I didn't feel I could trust the author's idea anymore. I will revisit The Missing at some point, but not in the near future. Anyone else? God I love having a section dedicated to horror literature. Sure, the Fangoria boards have it as well, but I never felt too welcome over there.
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