Uninspired
I keep searching for a scary haunted house book, and it's so hard to find a good one! Knowing that, I give them more leeway than other genres. This is my second (and last) Darcy Coates book; her writing is just not very good (apologies to Ms. Coates). I listened to ten chapters of this book and turned it off with an eye-roll.
THE SET UP
Haunted house with really interesting back-story used now only for guided tours. Tour guide asked to stay in the house for two weeks with a group of people for research.
WEAKNESSES
- Poor character development. Flat, cookie-cutter characters. Painfully stereotypical. Spongebob Squarepants' characters are more complex - and I'm not even kidding.
- Basic dialogue. Nothing interesting at all.
- Good story made boring: author glossed over the most interesting elements of the story (there *is* a good premise buried in there somewhere) and weighed the book down with boring details.
- Pacing. If anything scary happens, it isn't within the first 10 chapters.
Just a heavy-handed and decidedly un-scary effort all around.
