I was hopeful, expecting an interesting dark, gothic, horror novel. Unfortunately, Something by Shelby Lamb really misses the mark for me. The writing was gratuitous seemingly there only for shock value. The horror wasn’t developed enough to be frightening. Then, there are the characters that all feel like caricatures out of horror movies. There was nothing for me to latch onto.
Most of the novel, I just kept waiting for everything to come together, all of the various stories, but they never really did. The first quarter to half of the novel is spent flipping from character to character to character without any transition, which was jarring. Once a loose semblance of connection was formed between everyone, it did get easier to read, but not better. It only became enjoyable once I started reading this as a horror movie parody, which is the only way it made sense to me with characters this flat and one-dimensional. But then, it becomes more of a comedy than a horror story.
The part that was supposed to be scary, the mysterious book the curses everyone who reads it, doesn’t feel real. There’s no real story to it, no reason for it to be read. But fine, I’ll accept that it has some demonic pull forcing people to read it. However, as a reader, I need more. And then, even after reading it, the “scary” things that happen are brief flickers of horror tropes without a real sense of depth or description.
Though it pains me to say it, I think if you’re looking for horror, steer clear of Something by Shelby Lamb.
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