Customer Reviews

Hater

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Many survival/post-apocalypse works focus on a person or group who is "fully-prepped" and ready to rock against (insert world-killer here). Not the main character of "Hater." Danny is a regular schmuck who pushes files all day that go off somewhere to be filed - again. The only military training he possesses is the ability to fling paperclips dead-center into your eyeball. He probably listened to The Cure in high school. Hell, he probably still does. Unlike novels such as "Patriots" where the characters have been preparing for (insert world-killer here) since Reagan was president, Danny can barely make it to payday. He's like so many of us and I enjoy that aspect about him. David Moody really illustrates this well and it brings humanity to a hero that so many of these kinds of novels render as a cartoon (think Duke Nuke'em). Read this and you will most likely identify with the guy on some level. Not to spoil, but later on, fate tips the tables in Danny's favor which color him blood red. At that point, the novel becomes a frightening commentary on the service-sector, post-industrial lemminghood that has been forced upon so many of us. Wonderful read!

If you're considering this book for the gore and action, you'll be fairly disappointed. Hater is a lot more interesting than that - it's terrifying because it's believable, realistic and easy to relate to. I know at least one reviewer had the impression that it showed people doing illogical things, searching for a great purpose in some sort of trite philosophical quest etc... but I'm going to disagree - to try and squeeze Hater into a neat little cynical box is to miss the important subtleties that make this book so extraordinary. But really, it's done so simply that it doesn't get ahead of itself. Can you imagine a disease or a virus that makes you turn on the people you love the most? Hater makes it real. It turned my stomach and had me up at night in sheer, horrible contemplation. I couldn't put it down and it didn't feel like I was reading because I was so caught up! The main character was written perfectly. I'm a single mom in the United States, and yet I could completely relate to Danny McCoyne. I've read this thing 4 times already, and as you can see, I'm still haunting the reviews. I recommend it to the umpteenth degree.

WOW. The first thing I will say is, you don't need to read a review of this book. You just need to read it for yourself. This story is fantastic. David Moody has created a story that could possibly be one of the best modern "situation horror" stories ever written. I was hooked from the first chapter. This book starts at a fast pace and just continues to gain momentum right until the end.
This isn't your run of the mill "horror" story. There isn't a monster, no vampires or werewolves. The fear comes from our own humanity, or what will happen if we lose our humanity. The author has created a world were a proportion of the population becomes affected by a "new" kind of disorder. Once affected they lose all humanity towards those not affected. They fear those who haven't changed and they HATE those who haven't changed. They find only one way of fixing this situation. Kill the unchanged.
The horror in this book comes at the reader from three different angles. Firstly, we have the violence that is carried out throughout the whole story. It is relentless, in your face and most of all, it is believable. Every attack resembles something we could possibly read or see in the news on a daily basis. Secondly, we have the simple horror of normal people being trapped and confused in this situation. The author really creates a spine chilling experience by making us feel empathy with those not affected and from this we get a feeling of the fear that they must be feeling. Thirdly, the horror, at its best, comes from the very realistic way that David Moody has shown us how humanity, love and empathy can easily be destroyed once fear is added into the world. How friends can turn on friends once they are shown the difference. How we fear those who are different from ourselves and the lengths we are willing to go to get rid them.
The story is easy to read, captivating, brilliant, scary and worryingly mirrors the world we live in. Expect a few shivers down your back and after reading, try not to judge those you walk past in the street. After all, it is only a story........ but it will make you think!!!

A cross between 28 days later and the best of post apocalyptic fiction. A truly frightening yet enthralling read. Recommended highly.

HATER is by far one of my favorite books. Fast paced and relentless. It has an atmosphere similar to that of LET ME IN(LET THE RIGHT ONE IN)in that it blurs the line between Good and Evil and makes the reader feel that escape is most definitely impossible. Provides an incredible (and much needed!) twist to the Zombie Genre. I've just started its sequel DOG BLOOD and am already hooked on the continuation of this story.

Ok, this is the first book I couldn't put down! Very fast paced and interesting no slow lagging period, I read the first two books quickly and am preordered the third! It is very graphic and there is plenty of gore too.

Oh my gosh! I picked up David Moody’s Hater the other day, and started reading it yesterday and finished today. I totally couldn’t put it down! It was a really fast, really fun horror read. The story behind the book is really neat too, a total ‘underdog does well’ kind of story. David Moody self published Hater online five years ago, and because it’s a legitimately great story it became really successful, going on to be published as a ‘real’ book. David Moody then went on to sell the film rights to Guillermo del Torro (who I totally love and I can’t wait to see what he does with the story).
Hater tells the story of the beginnings of a world-altering event, whether it’s an evolutionary change or something even more ominous, which divides society into ‘Haters’ and regular folks. The book takes place over the course of a week and a bit and tells the story of Danny, an average guy with a wife and three small children. Danny hates his job, but sticks with it to help support his wife, Liz, and their family (side note: for some reason or another, as I was reading, I always pictured Danny as Simon Pegg...if you’ve read the book, let me know if you agree or not). At first, the ‘Hater’ outbreaks (people just changing in an instant and killing people) are scattered across the city, a few here, a few there, but they get ever closer to Danny and his family.
Moody weaves a fantastic story in Hater. It’s not your typical pre-apocalyptic story, and I think that part of that is due to the nature of the characters. Danny is a really average guy, there’s nothing stand out about him at all, in fact, there are times that you don’t even like him. The way that he talks to his children is frustrating, but it’s effective in getting across his levels of frustration. Danny is frustrated with his life in general. He hates his job, had kids too young hardly gets to spend any time with his wife, he’s basically a miserable man. What is endearing though, is that over the course of the story you see Danny rise up. He does everything in his power to keep his family safe, and you’re going to have to read it to find out if he does or not...
Hater is a bloody, messy story and if you like fast paced, scary reads (especially those that have apocalyptic leanings), then you have to read this book. I really, really enjoyed it and I hope you will too!

I liked this book enough to want to read the sequel, but not enough to want to add it to my personal library. It is a nice piece of escapism, but I think it probably would have been better suited to a film than a novel.

Here are my main issues: The main character is the narrator, and I guess we are literally supposed to be inside his head, because the writing is incredibly redundant. Often times you will be reading something that was just said almost word for word 2 or 3 pages before. This is tiresome. The chapters aren't long enough that we can forget what the character's objective is. I almost didn't finish the book at all because of it. Some writers can make repetitive writing work, Chuck Palahniuk for example, but I kept thinking to myself "yeah, yeah we know that already!" several times while reading this.

Another thing is that the characters aren't even particularly likable or compelling. Danny McCoyne, The main character is not that bright and spends way too much time griping about not getting laid, hating his job and having too many kids. Yes that is an important aspect of his character, but I feel like it could have been summarized. The other characters are basically vehicles for Danny's character development, which I didn't particularly care about. This is a real problem, because the book is essentially about what makes us human. But this being the case, you are forced to rely on the actual story line for entertainment rather than character development. The plot is fun, but slow. You do not figure out exactly what's going on until the last 10 pages of the book and much of the book is filled with long, seemingly irrelevant rants by the main character that could have easily been left out.

Things that worked for me:
I'm the kind of person who believes that if you are going to write a piece that is only meant to be escapism, then don't bother with any kind of pretense, and it didn't have any of that. Lots of blood and guts! The chapters were short and you could tell that it wasn't meant to be cerebral or thought-provoking. It's a very quick read and once it started to peak it was very suspenseful and fun. If you can make it past the first 100 pages then you may find yourself pleasantly surprised, but I would come with low expectations.

I love post-apocalypse, society-breaking-down fiction, but I didn't love "Hater." The story definitely held my attention, but the main character, Danny, wasn't very likeable (he has a wife, a crappy job, and three demanding children; that's pretty much all the information about him we get). His inner monologue consists mainly of complaining about his personal and financial situation. When people in London (and throughout England, at least) start turning on their loved ones, friends, or anyone within reach, fear begins to spread and society begins to crumble. That's fertile ground for a novel, but since Danny's life is presented as being so crappy to begin with, it's hard to feel that he's lost much when it falls apart. The cause of the change is never really explained, and the ending of the book is not entirely satisfying. I hesitate to say any more, for fear of spoiling it for those who still want to read "Hater."

I read the whole thing and its just bad on many levels. Its looking for a metaphor and the author should of stated it in an abstract so that we might pin him down on it with Elmer's glue and get it over with.

The previous reviewers alluded to a fast paced novel ... nope. Its kind of like Dawn of the Dead but you never get to the Mall. All character development kinda stops half way through and we are on a long wrap up for part two.

I really liked the beginning of the book. The main character was developing nicely and I liked how the author gave us the hater's perspective when they changed. From there everything is miserable and self centered for the most part. If your not a hater, you do nothing but what good for you and skip everyone else. When your a hater, once you get past the initiation part of killing some innocent sucker just cuz its the most logical path to follow, your palling around with the bestest most magnanimous altruistic bunch of self center people that do everything for one another but kill everyone else as long as the timing is right and if its not, we act like we did before; whine and wait ... wait, mmm.

I have a hard time with irrational acts leading to rational pacts of irrational people that have a global goal that must lead to nothing in the end because they are a disconnected people with no other goal. Did I just say that out loud? Maybe its a Gaea thing. Maybe its a Nietzsche "become what you are" thing, which I'm all for but it was never meant in this vein. Maybe its a I don't care because its boring thing. Hater/non-hater ... whats the difference with the exception of kill, kill, kill for different self centered reasons ... which kind of sounds like we are hitting a metaphor, but its not that easy in this book, and the journey isn't worth wherever this story goes, part two goes and beyond. I'm skipping the boat ride.