mikerickson@bookwyrm.social reviewed Ghost story by Peter Straub
Review of 'Ghost story' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Oh wow. What a fundamentally unenjoyable experience reading this book was.
I'll try to keep this short because I hate the idea of giving this book even more time than it's already taken from me, but this really felt like a story that did not want to be told. Thematically I suppose that makes sense because at the center of it all lies an event that happened a long time ago and that five of the main characters would very much like to keep in the past, but you don't even find that out until 3/4s of the way through the book. Every bit of progress felt like pulling teeth and there's just way too much nothing happening on these pages.
It leans very heavily on a Gothic Horror style, being very oppressive and isolated and claustrophobic at times, but I simply... didn't care. Damn near the entire town gets …
Oh wow. What a fundamentally unenjoyable experience reading this book was.
I'll try to keep this short because I hate the idea of giving this book even more time than it's already taken from me, but this really felt like a story that did not want to be told. Thematically I suppose that makes sense because at the center of it all lies an event that happened a long time ago and that five of the main characters would very much like to keep in the past, but you don't even find that out until 3/4s of the way through the book. Every bit of progress felt like pulling teeth and there's just way too much nothing happening on these pages.
It leans very heavily on a Gothic Horror style, being very oppressive and isolated and claustrophobic at times, but I simply... didn't care. Damn near the entire town gets namedropped and there are so many characters I'm forced to remember for no discernible benefit. Pair that with an anticlimactic "that's it?" kind of ending, and there's really nothing to recommend here.
If you stripped away 60% of the wordcount and gave the premise and concept to a better writer, I can see how this would've been good. Instead, we have this dated, strangely misogynistic doorstop that should only be read for it's historical value so you can see how much better books have gotten since 1979. But even that's probably not a good reason unless you're some kind of literary academic.
Don't be like me. Stay away from this one.