Horrorscape
I found this book very difficult to follow. You know those cartoons that have a hallway, lined on booth sides with doors? Then you have a bunch of people coming in at one door, but going out the other? It was pretty much like that for me,all the way trough.The reason of my mass confusion were constant vague transitions between scenes. One minute you are dealing with one group of characters, and before you know it you started dealing with the other, but you weren't sure just how the transition took place or when.
The second thing was speech patterns throughout the novel. Gavin is a very intelligent, eloquent young man. He has a specific way with words, and that was one of his major distinguishing characteristics in the previous novel. The author herself has a unique way of intertwining her descriptions and up to so far both complimented each other greatly. Until now. The characters all managed to sound like the same, think the same, experience the same things equally. Add to it the vague transitions and you have a massive question mark as a result.
I loved the general idea of this novel, a party turned sinister. The concept was brilliant, but the problem was execution. Campbell usually has her characters defined and acting age-appropriately, but here it seems as if there was just to many of them to manage successfully.
When you have high school seniors, and college kids about, one thing is guaranteed, attitude. These kids acted like a bunch of five year olds all stuffed together for a sleepover. There wasn't any logic to majority of their actions.
There have been some massive oversights as well: Val hasn't been present in the room when game two was announced, yet she new to look for the chess pieces....and such.
This novel has so much potential,but the entire thing needs to go back to the drawing board.
The thing that kept all of this afloat was the progression in Gavin's instability. It sets the stage for the culmination of the story on a whole new level. Looking forward to that.
