It’s extraordinarily rare for something as simple as a title or a cover to catch my attention as a reader. I read blurbs. I read reviews. I seek out recommendations from my friends and family. I can think of two books in the whole of my adult life that I’ve picked up based on cover art or title.
This is one of them:
Something about that title really caught my imagination. I didn’t even know what genre the book qualified as, but I knew I wanted it. I looked up the author. I discovered that this is classified as science fiction, set in a far future where the zombies are real and humanity is a small village lost in a forest of hands and teeth. I wanted it even more.
Downloaded the Kindle sample chapter for iPhone and I read it all the way to the end. This is one of those books that gives me the feeling people will generally either love it or hate it. Oddly, I love it and hate it. The story was beautiful, the emotion and the characters and the setting were hauntingly, tantalizingly real. And I couldn’t finish it.
Sometimes, no matter how beautiful a story is, no matter how wonderfully imagined and detailed, style matters. This story is written in first person (which I generally don’t get along with, as a rule. Something about all those my me I’s leaves me feeling like I’m reading the tale of a narcissist) and in present tense (*wince*).
In the end, this is a book I would recommend highly to anyone who doesn’t mind present tense, and to anyone who is a writer if they’re looking for something beautiful to study.
WTB version not written in present tense.
Interesting review. Getting back to my writing has certainly ruined my reading pleasure. The book must be extremely good to get past my critique filters.