I’ve been wanting to read Nevill for a while now, and this was probably as good a place as any to start.

It was definitely tense, and I finished it off in only a couple nights. I do think I like these claustrophobic, you can’t escape it types of books. It’s some of the only horror that evokes a reaction out of me. 

I wasn’t a fan of some of the details - fatphobia, casual misogyny, lots of piss talk, homophobic slurs, a lot of repetition. The pacing suffered from the amount of repetition, and the middle to ending sagged because of it. 

I wanted more about the religion. I really enjoyed all the bits we did get, but it wasn’t a super deep sort of lore to explore. It was a lot of surface details and facts. 

Movie vs. book:

I liked the movie better in terms of both pacing and the entire ending sequence. I thought the teenagers kidnapping Luke wasn’t all that engaging. I did like the church and cemetery stuff the book had to offer, though, and all the dream sequences/forest children.

I’m glad I started with an older book by Nevill. His writing is promising and I’ll definitely be trying out more of his newer work.