Customer Reviews

Winged Creatures: A Novel

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Well, I really didn't love this book - I think my expectations were too high. To have such high reviews here, not to mention how quickly it has been turned into a movie, created a hype that I just didn't think the book lived up to. It wasn't by any means a bad book - it was extremely well-written. It just wasn't all that engaging. The suspense built over the course of the novel fell a bit flat by the end. And while the premise, of following survivors of a random act of violence, was original, the book lacked sympathetic characters.

If you've ever wondered what happens to the survivors of some random shooting after the news cameras go home, you absolutely want to read Winged Creatures. It's about "everyday" people going to some "everyday" place - here, a local fast-food restaurant - and out of nowhere, shots are fired and people lay dead. It's not revenge, not a lover's quarrel, not a robbery - it's just a senseless, random shooting spree, like we've all seen on the news too many times. It touches a nerve.

Freirich puts us right in the second-to-second horrifying beats of the shooting - how raw, surreal, and excruciating it must be. From the shock of the initial shot, to a dead person's cell going off, to the goosh of the soda fountain as the gunman pours himself a coke while deciding who's next.

Teenagers Anne & Jimmy hide under a table (while Anne's dad is shot) - later Anne blackmails Jimmy into muteness about what really happened; waitress and single mom Carla bravely but unsuccessfully tries to call out on her cell, and later uses her baby's health to make a "connection" to the world that she craves; driving instructor Charlie rushes the gunman and survives a head graze, and later takes his "luck" to a casino; ER doctor Laraby desperately tries but fails to save the shooting victims, and later is driven to "heal" his increasingly "sick" wife.

It's in the aftermath of the shooting that we see the character's loneliness, secret hopes, and jealousies: unpopular teen Anne suddenly finds herself being invited to sit with the cool girls at lunch; paintball aficionado Jimmy can't help but compare his actions to his disabled Iraqi war-vet brother; Carla's envious of Anne being interviewed by local press. Heartbreaking delusions take over their lives: Laraby believes he should save every patient; Charlie believes the dice are with him, Annie believes God has chosen her, Carla believes the ER doctor will love her.

Sadly, these random shootings have become something that's part of American culture. And to that end, Freirich's novel is alive with current pop references, idioms, thinking and attitudes, which makes it so real... so right here in our own back yard.

Really what else is there to say that hasn't already been said in every review on this page. The characters are complete and vivid, the story will take you on an emotional journey very few books get right, and this one really gets it. So stop reading reviews and buy this book, it won't disappoint. FIVE STARS ALL THE WAY.

A scary ride with characters who get strange just slowly enough that
you're with them and then finally you're shocked at how far off the
rails they've gone.. It says it's a movie, but there's so much going
on in these people's heads that can't be in a film, I wonder how
they're going to do it. There's an idea here of how violence causes
more violence, even accidentally, but somehow also inevitably. It makes
you think about the next action movie where three dozen guys get blown
away in the first five minutes: all the stories these movies leave
behind of regular people, trying to cope with death and murder and
maybe not so well, and in other ways than just drinking and flashbacks
and being jumpy. This is really being in the skins of those people.

I generally read sci-fi or fantasy, but I made an exception for this book! A good friend insisted I had to read it and now that I've finished I need to pass it on! The novel is compelling, thought-provoking, and addicting! I can't wait for the movie!

In Hunt Landing, Michigan, Dr. Laraby stops for a coffee to go at Carby's on his way to work as an ER resident at Hunt Landing Medical LLC where his late father was a founder. Not longer after he leaves, a shooting incident occurs at Carby's.

Laraby tries to save the lives of a victim and the shooter, but both die. Teenagers Anne Hagen and Jimmy Jaspersen are in the hospital when her mom Doris arrives. Also there are Lori and Sue Carline. The three teenage girls share in common that their dads were with them at Carby's and are now dead as a result of the mass shootings. Jimmy was also there with Annie and her father.

Psychologist Dr. Abler offers help to the survivors and their loved ones. Abler explains to Anne about grief, but she insists she is a witness to God's plan and she held her brave dad's hand while she was under a table and he courageously remained exposed to the killer. The psychologist turns to Jimmy, who is unable to speak. Another survivor forty-eight year old Charlie Archenault, a father and husband, was shot, but is okay. He feels lucky to be alive so he just leaves, takes out money and drives to a casino. Twenty-two year old cashier Carla Davenport is shook up, but also just leaves to pick up her baby Davy from the sitter.

This novelization of an upcoming movie contains a strong premise of following what happens to the survivors and their loved ones of a shooting at a public place that left people dead. The ensemble cast contains unique characters with each person coping differently. However, the rotating perspective at times becomes difficult to follow with what is happening to everyone. Still WINGED CREATURES is an intriguing character study that looks deep into the aftermath of a personal tragedy.

Harriet Klausner

I stayed up half the night to finish this. You don't know what these characters are up to next and finally you don't even know if they're going to live through it. What does happen to them all is surprising but makes total sense. I loved this!!!!

How great is it to read real literature again? Such a breath of fresh air. Freirich has written a rich, completely absorbing, yet totally accessible novel. He digs into the characters and we stay with them on their transcendant journey from hapless bystander to complex, fully realized, emotionally wounded collateral vicitms of random violence. This moment is surely the most indelible moment of their lives and we feel that as they fight and struggle to figure it out themselves. The multiple viewpoints and storylines serve the incident nicely as it forces us to think how different people might process the exact same event in a completely different manner. It's provoking, and thoughtful. And the themes certainly stay with you long after you've finished. It'll be interesting to see what Freirich comes up with next.

Winged Creatures presents a compelling vision of post traumatic stress and the different ways it is manifested in each survivor. Each of the primary characters is connected through their shared experience, a gunman shooting several people in a cafe. As the story progresses, the characters we are following each begin to break down in order to cope with their emotions. I would highly recommend this book.

In the past few decades, America has seen the rise of a strange phenomenon: the random shooting. Every time a shooting happens, the media shows up, records the pain and shock in front of them, and then leave, as if that were all of the story there was to tell. So much of our culture focuses on the actual event; every minute, tiny detail is taken and replayed over and over on our television screens. Less frequently we study the time leading up to the tragedy, magnifying motives and reasons. While works concerning this are certainly necessary, in Winged Creatures, we have a new perspective entirely. This book shows us what happens when America moves on, and the victims are left alone with their thoughts.

Anne, whose father was killed, becomes both a zealot and a martyr to his memory. Her friend Jimmy is struck completely mute from fear of Anne, and the truth of what happened to her father. Dependable family man Charlie survives a scraped bullet wound to the head and decides that he is lucky--lucky enough to gain a better life for his wife and daughter by betting all of their savings in a Las Vegas casino. Carla slowly disconnects from what she loves most in the world, and becomes lost in an escapist fantasy involving Laraby, the doctor who failed to save Anne's father's life, and who has now developed an obsessive complex with saving the "sick".

It's a very dark book, as the subject matter calls for, but is handled with a precision and care that could almost be described as loving-- each character is delicately, compassionately displayed, and yet their progressing sicknesses are raw and candid. Real, I think would be the word to describe this story. This book is real.

I would recommend it to any survivor of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as it rings absolutely true. Anyone should read it, though, to be honest. I haven't read a book this intimate, touching, or poignant in a very long time. It teaches compassion. It does so beautifully.