The Cabin at the End of the World
Author:
Genres: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Horror
Book Type: Paperback
Author:
Genres: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Horror
Book Type: Paperback
An off-beat horror story, in which the horror doesn't depend on Dueling Banjos, or the eldritch, or Old Gods buried in the root cellar, but on something much more terrifyingly plausible: a home invasion by a group of strangers with baffling, murderous demands.
Never less than well-written and intriguing, but it seems to me like the whole is less than the sum of the parts: I'm not sure why Tremblay has asked me to endure this deeply disturbing tale. What's the lesson, or message, or salutary warning I'm supposed to be taking away from this? Don't vacation in a remote cabin in the woods, out of cell phone range? Well, I would have thought we'd all learned that lesson, from stories and movies, a long time ago ...
Is there no message? Just a horrible parable about the way a life can go up in flames in a heartbeat, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it?? Well thanks, Paul.
This novel does an excellent job of intensively recreating what it must be like to be at the mercy of murderous whack-jobs -- The invaders don't want anything their victims (or we, the readers) can understand -- money, valuables, power. Not even inspired by prejudice --the two men are gay spouses, but the home invaders' denials that it has anything to do with why they have been targeted sounds almost sane, and more persuasive than most of their story.
I stuck with this out of curiosity, and the need to find out what happens, what the author does with it, and how he brings it to an end. Having been hooked by the opening, told from the beautifully done perspective of lovely, delightful 8-year-old Wen, I couldn't put it down until I exhausted the possibility that I would come away with a good reason for having read this.
And I didn't, not really. As one of my friends has said, "what you think might happen ends up happening." And I came away with no sense that the anticipated, expected ending added any value or meaning to a deeply disturbing (if cleverly written) series of events.
Never less than well-written and intriguing, but it seems to me like the whole is less than the sum of the parts: I'm not sure why Tremblay has asked me to endure this deeply disturbing tale. What's the lesson, or message, or salutary warning I'm supposed to be taking away from this? Don't vacation in a remote cabin in the woods, out of cell phone range? Well, I would have thought we'd all learned that lesson, from stories and movies, a long time ago ...
Is there no message? Just a horrible parable about the way a life can go up in flames in a heartbeat, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it?? Well thanks, Paul.
This novel does an excellent job of intensively recreating what it must be like to be at the mercy of murderous whack-jobs -- The invaders don't want anything their victims (or we, the readers) can understand -- money, valuables, power. Not even inspired by prejudice --the two men are gay spouses, but the home invaders' denials that it has anything to do with why they have been targeted sounds almost sane, and more persuasive than most of their story.
I stuck with this out of curiosity, and the need to find out what happens, what the author does with it, and how he brings it to an end. Having been hooked by the opening, told from the beautifully done perspective of lovely, delightful 8-year-old Wen, I couldn't put it down until I exhausted the possibility that I would come away with a good reason for having read this.
And I didn't, not really. As one of my friends has said, "what you think might happen ends up happening." And I came away with no sense that the anticipated, expected ending added any value or meaning to a deeply disturbing (if cleverly written) series of events.
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