Author: David Bergantino
Genre: Horror
Format: Paperback
Pages: 154
This will easily be my best find all year. So shout out to my Mim for taking bookshop while I was in my hometown. Because this was an ace find for a lot of reasons. The main one being I didn't even know this series existed and I'm a huge Nightmare on Elm Street fan. So there was no way I wasn't taking this home with me. I also wasn't really sure what I was about to get myself into with this story. Besides the fact, it was going to be weird, and probably gross.
I will say in places this book hasn't aged well at all. It was written in 1995, and some of the language is still definitely set in the 90s. It's not overly harsh, or even as bad as the first movie. However, some of the terminology is outdated.
Twice Burned is more geared for Young Adult readers and the language and adult scenes are tamer than what we saw in the Elm Street movies. This surprised me until the end of the book I realized the game that was being played. So the tone-down nature of this book makes sense and honestly fits the story really well. Caroline is a sweet and innocent kind of girl at 16. So it makes sense that there are little cussing or sex scenes.
Plus this was written by a guy, so I made assumptions based on that...
Honestly, I was surprised at how much I liked this book. I went into figuring it would corny and worth a good laugh. But, it's a really good book. I read it over the two days after work, a little bit a time. Though the last fifty, or so, pages make it hard to put down. Once you really start to get into what's currently going on in Springwood. So it was a pleasant surprise to see how much I got into this story itself.
I will say I wasn't really a fan of any of the characters. Caroline is a bit simpering for my taste of Final Girls, though perfect for the Elm Street series. Though, Nancy she is not. As for the rest of the cast of characters, I was kind of meh about them. Kirk was an ass, Lance was a jerk, and Ricky was just gross. A book like this sort of makes it easy to get excited when they die. Like I felt bad they were the main characters friends, but some of them kind of deserved it. Especially Vicky, thank you the author for giving her the death she deserved.
The highlight of this book.
The actual villain of this story always alluded to me until the end. Only because I thought for certain that our main villain wasn't going to make an appearance. Which I should have known better, but for some reason I had it in my head that this time the bad guy was human. Like I didn't know what book I was reading. So I was shocked when I finally caught onto what was happening. And, honestly, I think it's because I spent so long trying to figure out why everyone was dying, and how Caroline fits into the whole story, that I forgot whose book I was reading.
Lastly, I liked that this story isn't just told through Caroline's point of view. We got a few chapters from all the character's points of view. It was great to see the story from their perspective and maybe pick up on pieces to the puzzle I couldn't see with just Caroline's point of view. The switch from character to character was great as well. It was either done through a new chapter or a page break and usually, the new point of view started with their name so you know whose side of the story you were jumping into.
All-in-all this was a great read. Other than a couple of little things I really enjoyed this book, glad I found it, and I'm excited to have it in my vintage horror collection. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for the rest of the books in this series. Though, from what I saw on the internet, that search might be quite hard. It doesn't seem like a lot of the books are for sale. Which will make it all the more satisfying when I find a new one!
No comments:
Post a Comment