Kristopher Reisz

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: The worst ‘scary’ story ever.

Opening Sentence: But it’s a beautiful day, Holly.

The Review:

Possibly the worst book I’ve read all year. Usually, by the time I’ve read about a third of any book I know how well I’ll like the rest of the story. With The Drowned Forest, it started off incredibly boring with a whiny main character and unfortunately that impression remained until the last page!

Steve is wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday morning. Sipping an energy drink, he says, “So…what? You crashing here?”
I nod. “Holly’s a ghost. Her soul’s trapped in the river, and I have to stay here until we can free her.”
“Wow, that sucks. It won’t keep you up if I play Xbox will it?”

Jane is the most irritating protagonist ever. I tried to cut her some slack because her friend died but seriously, her constant preaching drove me insane. Don’t get me wrong, a little faith or encouragement to connect with an alternate being here and there can bring more life to a book, but this was different. Jane preaches in every single conversation, telling her friends off about not coming to church, and overall being far too judgmental. To make matters worse, throughout the story, Jane has a one-way conversation with her dead friend, Holly. It was sad at first, but when every thought of hers surrounded Holly, it became a leeeeetle obsessive. It was no surprise that her parents thought she was losing it.

“Christian music isn’t really a style of music like rock or the blues. It’s really more of a song theme, like love songs.”
“So?”
“So listening to it all the time and nothing else, it’s like listening to love songs all the time and nothing else.”
“So? Would that be so horrible?”
“Yes. Because nobody’s in love all the time.”
“So? Maybe we would be in love all the time if we listened to love songs all the time.”

Tyler was a definitely more likeable than Holly, at least he had some semblance to reality! I might have actually enjoyed the story if it was told from his perspective.

The author tried to make this a scary story but it just came across as unrealistic. I couldn’t imagine the scenes where Holly comes out of the lake without being skeptical; the writing just didn’t draw me in. Maybe if there was less preaching and a different protagonist this might have been a halfway decent read.

Notable Scene:

But then you died, and God ran away. He’s gone, and I don’t know why. I kneel and bow my head and say the words, but they can’t open my heart anymore. My heart is broken and useless like an old watch. It’s a lump of rusted-up metal in my chest. All I do is kneel here and talk to you.

FTC Advisory: Flux provided me with a copy of The Drowned Forest. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.… (meer)

Jane misses her best friend Holly, who drowned while they were horsing around on the tire swing by the river. They’d played with the swing thousands of times, but no one expected Holly to drown doing an easy back flip. Unable to contain her grief, Jane talks to Holly in her mind and spends all her time praying. Read the rest of the review on my blog: http://shouldireaditornot.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/the-drowned-forest-kristopher...… (meer)