Daniel Arocha từ Witoldów, Poland

ledanihernandez

05/03/2024

Dữ liệu người dùng, đánh giá và đề xuất cho sách

Daniel Arocha Sách lại (10)

2019-06-14 09:30

Tranh Truyện Dân Gian Việt Nam - Sự Tích Hồ Ba Bể Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn

Sách được viết bởi Bởi: Hồng Hà (Biên Soạn)

Suffer the Children is a good, old-fashioned horror story, with a touch of the paranormal, a little classic mythology, and a healthy dose of suspense, all set down in a contemporary British setting. It’s the kind of book perfect for curling up with on a rainy afternoon and reading from cover to cover. Author Townsend has a facile, easy way with her prose and a keen observer’s eye for people, resulting in unique and breathing characterization. Townsend’s characters are mostly young adults, late teens to early twenties, and she captures them well, in all their late-adolescent angst and bad decision-making. It is this age group that forms the central conflict and central horror to the novel. The orphaned main character, Leanne, has lost her mother to a drug overdose (one long in coming) and discovered, almost at the same time, that she has an aunt and a ready-made family she never knew existed until her mother died. Leanne’s entry into this middle-class, white bread family, after growing up in what is essentially a London ghetto, makes for the novel’s initial dramatic tension. But then teenagers begin disappearing. Teenagers like Leanne, fosters, delinquents, and the like, all turn up missing and leave not a trace behind. The Carver family, who have adopted Leanne, lost their own daughter, Emma, and she may have fallen victim to the same plight as the other missing kids, although her disappearance does not fit the pattern. But the author cleverly explains Emma’s disappearance. The tension really ramps up in the novel when the pattern of disappearances begins to get noticed, not so much by the authorities, but by Leanne and her friends. Unfortunately, the tension is slow in coming. And I fear many readers may not stick with Suffer the Children long enough to get to the really good parts. A reader is a full quarter of the way into the book until he or she truly begins to see some horror and some nail-biting suspense. If I hadn’t been reading this book to review, I don’t know that I would have stuck it out to get to the latter part of the book, when the tension, dramatic conflict, and terror really accelerate. In short, I think Townsend could have benefitted from a good editor, to help her shape and focus the novel a bit more. A good horror novel needs to grab a reader right from the start and Suffer the Children fails on that count. But it is worth sticking with. In spite of a rather predictable climax and denouement (I saw the villain coming from a mile away), the book works. The author’s creation of likable characters who grow over the course of the novel, the palpable sense of tension and dread, and the effortless prose all combine to make Suffer the Children a horror experience I can definitely recommend.

Người đọc Daniel Arocha từ Witoldów, Poland

Người dùng coi những cuốn sách này là thú vị nhất trong năm 2017-2018, ban biên tập của cổng thông tin "Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn" khuyến cáo rằng tất cả các độc giả sẽ làm quen với văn học này.