Jared
Why did I finish this one? I honestly can’t tell you. The last book I read before this was Playground and it was so unbelievably awful that it kinda made me not want to read a book for a long time. But three months later and I’ve finally made it through.
Endless Night is a bad horror novel. It’s a great road trip story, but horrible everything else. There are large chunks of this book dedicated to Jody, Andy, Jody’s Dad and Sharon just having a normal vacation that are intercut with the killer talking about how much he wants to kill Jody. I really don’t know if that was meant to make us feel tension but it doesn’t work. I *guess* Laymon was trying to make the reader uncomfortable with the underlying idea that “he could show up at any moment” but it really loses steam quickly. I found myself wanting to get through the killer’s chapters as quick as possible so I could get back to the vacation plot line.
I guess the book succeeded in getting me to care about the characters. But even then it wasn’t like they were treated like real people. Jody and especially Sharon are treated like objects of desire rather than people. The omniscient narrator is *always* talking about their bodies in a very odd way. Even worse that Jody is 16. When the killer’s perspective is just filled with how much he wants to rape this character, it just goes over the top when the unseen narrator of the normal chapters is also constantly describing how attractive this kid is supposed to be.
The ending sucked. I’ve seen stories lull the audience into a sense of comfort before ripping it away. Mommy (2014) in particular is really good at doing what I think this novel was trying to do. But here it just feels cruel. And not in a smart or thought-provoking way. It just gets worse for the sake of getting worse.
Honestly, I’m kinda pissed that Gone to See the River Man was as good as it was. Because I keep getting tricked into thinking that extreme horror can be good. Maybe Kristopher Triana is just built different. I should just read his other books and avoid the rest of the genre.
Endless Night was a waste of time. If Richard Laymon can stop being a pedophile, he should try to write a slice of life comedy book.
Why did I finish this one? I honestly can’t tell you. The last book I read before this was Playground and it was so unbelievably awful that it kinda made me not want to read a book for a long time. But three months later and I’ve finally made it through.
Endless Night is a bad horror novel. It’s a great road trip story, but horrible everything else. There are large chunks of this book dedicated to Jody, Andy, Jody’s Dad and Sharon just having a normal vacation that are intercut with the killer talking about how much he wants to kill Jody. I really don’t know if that was meant to make us feel tension but it doesn’t work. I *guess* Laymon was trying to make the reader uncomfortable with the underlying idea that “he could show up at any moment” but it really loses steam quickly. I found myself wanting to get through the killer’s chapters as quick as possible so I could get back to the vacation plot line.
I guess the book succeeded in getting me to care about the characters. But even then it wasn’t like they were treated like real people. Jody and especially Sharon are treated like objects of desire rather than people. The omniscient narrator is *always* talking about their bodies in a very odd way. Even worse that Jody is 16. When the killer’s perspective is just filled with how much he wants to rape this character, it just goes over the top when the unseen narrator of the normal chapters is also constantly describing how attractive this kid is supposed to be.
The ending sucked. I’ve seen stories lull the audience into a sense of comfort before ripping it away. Mommy (2014) in particular is really good at doing what I think this novel was trying to do. But here it just feels cruel. And not in a smart or thought-provoking way. It just gets worse for the sake of getting worse.
Honestly, I’m kinda pissed that Gone to See the River Man was as good as it was. Because I keep getting tricked into thinking that extreme horror can be good. Maybe Kristopher Triana is just built different. I should just read his other books and avoid the rest of the genre.
Endless Night was a waste of time. If Richard Laymon can stop being a pedophile, he should try to write a slice of life comedy book.