Black Forest

This was a new author for me . I never read anything from this author before but for the most part I really liked this book. I thought the whole story was amazing. I honestly didn’t want this book to end. I can’t wait to see what this author comes up with on the next book they write. I usually judge a book from the cover because for me it shows if it’s going to be interesting or not and I loved the book.

I gotta be honest with you: I didn’t expect to like this book as much as I did, and I definitely didn’t expect it to be as freaky as it was. Maybe it’s because all the books people swear are scary aren’t scary to me or because I just have a very skewed perspective on the word “scary”, but this book is a trip and a half. It’s poetic, sad, angry, neurotic, tragic, disorienting, darkly romantic, fanciful (but not overly so), and deeply steeped in the darkest of fairy tales and American folklore. I guarantee you’ll spend most of this book wondering what the heck is truly going on, and that feeling only grows as the book goes on. In the end, you have to make a choice as to what you think really happened, and I don’t think there’s a wrong answer.

I’ll be frank with you in that there is a lot of homophobic language and behavior in this book, along with a lot of internalized homophobia. This appears both literally and metaphorically. If this behavior and the language surrounding it is a huge trigger for you, then be very aware that you will come across it multiple times in this book.

I found this book to be charming, in a way. Sounds unusual, I know, for a horror novel to be somewhat charming, but it sometimes was, with its bursts of Great Gatsby-like dialogue, small talk about mythology, ruminations on the original versions of fairy tales versus what Disney made of them, and shudder-inducing mentions of creatures from American folklore and Native American mythology that give even me the heebie-jeebees. It’s the kind of horror mixed with wonder that always makes me smile because it’s simultaneously exciting and terrifying all at once.

I will admit the story arc could be more solid. It’s not quite as well-plotted as it could be, but this isn’t a plot-driven novel. It’s a character-driven novel that could have been better supported with a more stable plot, but it didn’t need it to be a terrific amount of shivery fun. It’s not all fun and games either, let me tell you. There is a great deal of anger, sadness, and tragedy in this book too. And there’s also the eternal question when it comes to a novel like this (where our protagonist can see supernatural/paranormal beings): is it all in his head or not? Maybe it could even be both?

This book is a long, sad, horrible, freakish spiral into madness and desperation propelled by events that occurred before the book began and only perpetuated and/or accelerated by the protagonist’s mind or by events that happen during the book. It’s tragic, but the tragedy is a beautiful and angry mess. Well worth the read.

Thanks to NetGalley and InkShares for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.

File Under: Genre Mashup/Ghost Story/Horror/LGBTQ Fiction/LGBTQ Romance/Occult Horror/Psychological Thriller/Thriller