Customer Reviews

Come Closer

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After reading Sara Gran's excellent "Saturn's Return to New York" I couldn't wait to read her latest, "Come Closer." I expected to love it, and I was not disappointed. Her spare style sets the perfect tone for this grown-up ghost story of a modern woman who just might be possessed. The story was absorbing, gripping -- and creepy: although I read it enthusiastically, this was definitely a book I had to put away after dark. Wonderful!

An aura of menace gathers around narrator Amanda as strange mood swings and irritating tapping-thumping noises in the walls begin to disrupt her happily married life. Small things gather momentum. She begins fighting with her husband, resumes smoking, goes out drinking after work. The imaginary playmate from her childhood returns. It's quite some time before she realizes the seductive, insistent third voice inside her head (after the initial voice of temptation, and after the sober rejoinder of the voice of reason and resistance) isn`t her own. Or is it?

Gran's ("Saturn's Return to New York") short novel is a fairly straightforward tale of demonic possession, made chillingly delicious by the spare, unadorned voice, quick pace, and subtleties of psychological desire. Amanda's fate is not inevitable; there are ways to counter the demon, but does she have the faith required, or the strength of mind? Does she perhaps prefer to give in? Thoughtful as well as scary, Gran's tale evokes the lonely fears of adulthood.

A true horror story that doesn't pull punches. It's not about guts and gore, more about the slow loss of control. Buy it so I don't have to buy it for you.

I thought this was an awesome book. I too wish, that there were more good reads like this one.

This is a very good book that kept my attention. However, I think it is a bit thinly written. I appreciate crisp and clean writing as much as anybody. This book however does it at the expense of character though. The plot is mostly a catalogue/checklist of signs of posession that gives the book a plotless feel. On th whole it feels like a long short story.

This is a well written short novel with many things going for it, in
a genre that tries so hard to reinvent itself. Horror, dark fantasy,
whatever you call it always has its share each year of classy tales and I would put this one in that easily. I enjoyed the economy of the story, you
don't need to throw in more than needed, this story centers on this one
woman and those close by her(husband, co-workers)and succeeds in inducing an ever increasing
scence of malice and dread. Not to give anything away to those interested,
its a tight, strange little tale, a nice take on a paranormal-possession subject well written about.

...yet this is brilliant. I was apprehensive about the whole demon thing, but I read it because I love Gran's DOPE. The story is wonderfully told, and it can be read literally or as a great metaphor for anyone who's ever feared he was "losing it."

This is one of the few novels that have ever made me feel genuinely terrified. I was reading this alone in an empty house and had to stop because I felt so creeped out. The novel is written in a deceptively simple style that soon had me frantically turning pages. I read it in one day and then read it again straight after- it's that good.

I don't want to give anything away, but I will say that this novel is horrific and convincing. It makes some of the cookie-cutter Hollywood `horror' novels (the ones where the girls with big boobs always get caught by the villain with the fish hook who always walks, never runs) look pathetic and childish. The narrator of the story, Amanda, seems so real and normal that watching her life fall apart in such a horrible way made me feel deeply unsettled.

Overall, I recommended this for people who want a short novel that is refreshing, scary and unusual. It's a quick read that packs a huge emotional punch and is very satisfying. I don't normally read horror books, but found this one to be everything I expected and more. The ending is macarbre and a real bone-chiller. Enjoy!

I couldn't put this book down. It's an easy read, but also completely absorbing. It's very, very creepy as you watch what happens to Amanda. Think back....did you have an imaginary friend as a child? Was that dream I had last night "just" a dream or something more? What is that tapping I hear? Chills!

Sara Gran gives the going-over-the-edge book a whole new spin and it starts with a book! Amanda orders a book by mail (I wonder who from?) and the wrong book comes: one about demonic possession, with a quiz, yet. She doesn't send it back; in fact, some of what it says seems applicable to her own life. Everything around her starts changing, and her attitudes to her home, her husband, her job all deteriorate. Or is she actually liberated? That's the intriguing question in a thoughtful, hard-to-put down chiller.

Lev Raphael...