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[RonClinton]

Thanks for the review of the Tremblay book. It pretty much sealed the deal as far as passing on it goes. Maybe if I pick it for a song the aftermarket, but the general consensus is that it just isn't that good and there WAY too many other books to spend money on.

Chiming in on THE PALLERBEARERS CLUB (if I haven't already, but I don't recall doing so) with another thumbs down...and I'm a big fan of his work. Unlike Sholloman81, I didn't make it to the final two chapters, so will have to take his work for it that it finishes strong, but everything else he mentions is spot on: unlikeable characters, one of whom has the classic unreliable narration which adds nothing to the plot other than confusion, and a slow slog of a rather shallow plot...if there was some rich subtext going on under that surface telling of this story, it escaped me (or, at least, the first half that I read before DNFing it). I'm looking forward to HORROR MOVIE, his new one that's due out in a couple months, and have confidence it'll be a return to form. Then again, I had hoped that as well from his most recent offering, THE BEAST YOU ARE, half of which was a free-verse novella of poetic narration, which turned me off -- fairly or not -- immediately, so I didn't pick up that one. I like that Tremblay is experiemental to a degree in his form and isn't wary of taking chances and expanding his approach, but like all readers I guess I have my limit and "The Beast You Are" pushed it over the red line for me.

[sholloman81]

Chiming in on THE PALLERBEARERS CLUB (if I haven't already, but I don't recall doing so) with another thumbs down...and I'm a big fan of his work. Unlike Sholloman81, I didn't make it to the final two chapters, so will have to take his work for it that it finishes strong, but everything else he mentions is spot on: unlikeable characters, one of whom has the classic unreliable narration which adds nothing to the plot other than confusion, and a slow slog of a rather shallow plot...if there was some rich subtext going on under that surface telling of this story, it escaped me (or, at least, the first half that I read before DNFing it). I'm looking forward to HORROR MOVIE, his new one that's due out in a couple months, and have confidence it'll be a return to form. Then again, I had hoped that as well from his most recent offering, THE BEAST YOU ARE, half of which was a free-verse novella of poetic narration, which turned me off -- fairly or not -- immediately, so I didn't pick up that one. I like that Tremblay is experiemental to a degree in his form and isn't wary of taking chances and expanding his approach, but like all readers I guess I have my limit and "The Beast You Are" pushed it over the red line for me.

That's a bummer to hear about the Beast You Are. Haven't picked it up yet and but was hoping for something more in vain of his Growing Things collection which I enjoyed. I'm sure theĀ free-verse novella of poetic narration thing will not be my cup of tea either; however, I'm sure that I'll give the book a chance up the road.

[RonClinton]

That's a bummer to hear about the Beast You Are. Haven't picked it up yet and but was hoping for something more in vain of his Growing Things collection which I enjoyed. I'm sure theĀ free-verse novella of poetic narration thing will not be my cup of tea either; however, I'm sure that I'll give the book a chance up the road.

Yeah, I really dug GROWING THINGS, too. Until recently, I'd enjoyed everything he'd written (to varying degrees), including GROWING THINGS, his second collection.

[dannyboy121070]

I grabbed an ARC of Ray Garton's THE LOVELIEST DEAD off of the shelf after I heard he had passed, and it's a banger so far. Really enjoying it.