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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I am scared easily, here is a list of my adrenaline - production: 1: small children... -Alfred Hitchcock, June 12, 2008
This review is from: The Taken (Paperback)
Alex was preparing for her cousin Paul's arrival and his 40th birthday party when her aunt Mary has the shock of her life when she is approached by the ghost of a girl who died nearly 30 years ago. Melanie Parr disappeared and it seems she has come back to the small town of Watterow in England, bringing storms with her and seeking revenge in very creepy ways.
Alex is discovering she isn't the only one with secrets as the town's people, aunt and cousin included, all seem to be hiding something. Strange and deadly things are happening and no one knows how to stop it.
I don't generally read this genre, but a friend read it not too long ago and the storyline intrigued me. Is there anything creepier than evil children? I think not. This story delivered plenty of chills and as my city experienced power outages this weekend I found myself reading by candlelight then doing that ultra girly leap/dive into bed so Melanie and the other spooks in this story couldn't catch my feet from under the bed. I also ran from room to room looking over my shoulder. Embarrassing, I know.
This story is surprisingly complex and even tugged at a few of my heart strings when dealing with some of the secrets and the ending in particular. This was a suspenseful and creepy read and I am glad I stepped out of my normal reading realm to enjoy this one.
Cherise Everhard, June 2008
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant plotting, June 5, 2007
This review is from: The Taken (Paperback)
A small town in the remote British countryside falls under seige by a small army of malevolent ghost-children. Melanie Parr, the leader, blames certain residents of the town for her death 30 years earlier, and has returned to claim vengeance. This is what I knew about the novel before reading it, and it is more or less what I expected. This alone amounted to a good 3-star horror novel - mysterious events, scares, gore, etc. presented competently by a good writer. However, what I didn't expect was that this isn't what the novel is truly about.
Intertwined, yet effectively hidden for the majority of the novel, is another story, more important and more compelling in my opinion, where the horror hits at a much more personal level. The author masterfully conceals the subtle, more effective horrors of this hidden story among the more visceral, in-your-face terror found in most of the novel. Aside from a few hints that there might be something more going on, I was pleasantly surprised by the direction the author took the story.
Upon finishing the novel, I closed the book and thought about it... for hours. This is atypical for me as I usually eagerly jump right in to the next book, or at least browse my collection considering my next read. Only a handful of stories have ever had this effect on me. The novel went from 3-star to 4-star after finishing it, but after contemplating some of the plot points my opinion continued to rise. While the initial pretense of the story is the common good vs evil, monsters vs innocent, army of ghost-children vs sleepy town theme, the true story here is much more complex.
A unique story disguised as standard horror fare, I was won over by the outstanding plot - 4 and 1/2 stars!
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Let's play fishing with Kay", April 29, 2007
This review is from: The Taken (Paperback)
Thirty years ago, ten-year old Melanie Parr disappeared in a violent thunderstorm. Now she seems to have returned to seek revenge, along with a group of children in another raging thunderstorm. The inhabitants of the small town of Watterrow, England soon begin to die in horrible ways. Alex, a woman afflicted with cancer, seems to have a connection with the children. Along with her cousin Paul and his friend Simon, they'll try to get to the bottom of this, uncovering the town's darkest secret.
A creepy and enjoyable read. For her fourth book, Pinborough took the ghost story to another level with The Taken and avoided falling into the clichés of the genre. We learn that Melanie Parr wasn't some poor innocent girl killed off by evil people; she was a monster herself when she lived. There's a lot going on here; Alex is dealing with the reality of her imminent death, the town and its residents are cut off from the world because of the endless thunderstorm, strange children are playing in the streets around the town, meanwhile, the body count escalates and starts hitting a little too close to home. All this contributes to give the reader a sense of all-encompassing doom. Some of the deaths are pretty gruesome and inventive (the death involving fishhooks stayed with me for some time after reading the book). I also liked the legend of the Catcher Man; a tale told by parents to scare their kids into behaving. Does the Catcher Man really exist? Is Melanie really back from the dead? And where do all these kids wandering about come from?
There are a lot of characters to follow, but the focus is mainly on Alex, whose terminal cancer allows here to go between life and death. She's a very sympathetic character and Pinborough develops her fully, along with Alex's cousin, Paul and his mother, Mary, who seems to know a lot more than she's letting on about what happened thirty years ago. The story moves at a quick pace and is always very engaging and has genuinely scary moments. The flashbacks reveal some of the most intriguing parts of the story. Usually with a story like this, the third act is often a let-down. I was glad that it wasn't the case here. For the third part of the book leading to the grand finale, she went in a very interesting direction and brought the story to a superb climax.
If you're a fan of Pinborough's, you have to read The Taken; it's a solid effort and one of horror's best books so far this year. If you enjoy ghost stories, this isn't a conventional ghost story about a little girl haunting a town; it's much more than that, and should even satisfy avid readers of the genre. Highly recommended!
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