Read between May 3rd 2017 to May 9th 2017
and May 12th 2017 to May 13th,2017
First Sentence:
We bought the old house in Davenport, Maine because it had been cheap.
Sam Cabot is returning to farnahm house after 10 years.He’s a successful writer now. When he had first arrived here, he was struggling to write his first novel. He had a loving wife and a lovely son. They had wanted to live a happy life here.
Little did they know that they were not owning the house but the house was owning them. And then things started happening. Things that Sam would give anything to forget.
Returning to the place has taken him back to the time. He’s back again with Linda and Sean and we will be told what happened to them.
Horror is one of my favourite genre. It had been a long time since i had read anything from this genre so when i saw this book in my kindle library i knew i had to read it. It was being compared with ‘Amityville Horror’ and ‘The shining’ which piqued my interest in it. I had read both the books and liked them. And i’m glad to say that the book didn’t disappoint me.
The book is told in past tense. Sam is coming back to a place and is remembering things about it. But as i read the book, i came to the conclusion that he’s not among the most reliable narrator and that gives a hallucinogenic quality to the narration. As i reached the end and got to the a particular point i found out i had missed something and had to read the book again. I can say there are parts in it that you can’t skim through and have to be more attentive while reading them. The other thing that i liked in the book are the dream sequences. There are times when it’s difficult to separate the dream and reality and it renders a hazy feeling to the narration. I also liked the open ending that the writer has given to the book which makes you question everything that you have read.
As far as characters are concerned, i think Carlisle was creepy enough. But i wanted to know more about him. We are not given enough material as to how he transformed into what he had become. There are few details given about him which tell the reader what he is but doesn’t shed light on how he became it. He has a pet and i think it met its demise far too easily. That fight could have been more thrilling.
The rest of the characters are as good as they can get. Sam as a protagonist did some things which can seem inexplicable at first but once you read the whole book they become as clear as water.
The mask, the well and the furnace create an atmosphere of dread and supernatural that made me wanted to keep on reading. I liked how they were used.
In the end i would say it was a gripping read for me. I think after you finish the novel you will find that the title is very apt. If you are into horror then you should check this one out.
Some lines from the book:
After ten years, I had come to the realization that, as a road can carry one away, so again it can carry one back.
Someone once wrote that terror is most probably life’s purest emotion. If that is so, then grief is its most debilitating.
These days everything passes for an ailment. I think it’s man’s way of justifying his own inadequacies, if you want the truth. Make up an illness and a new drug will soon follow. Or maybe it’s the other way around.
I tend to believe that chance rules the universe and that I was the only survivor because I was in the right place at the right time.
“Sometimes it doesn’t pay to voice things you know shouldn’t be voiced.”
If you have read this book then do comment as to how did you find it? If you haven’t read the book then you can get the book from the following link:
