Matt McAvoy Book Review

Don’t believe other reviews on Goodreads; this is a pretty good, fun and very dark read.  Sure, the writing style takes a bit of getting used to; it does tend to focus on the visceral and the simplistic at first, with a little attention on explicitly suggestive kind of stuff – some of the sexual content is not going to be to all tastes – but in my opinion Corbeill is a decent writer who knows how to craft horror in its purest form.  The seven stories are interesting, and it should be pointed out that they do improve as the volume proceeds.  The tagline referring to this book as “A Splintered Novel” is a little misleading, though; these are simple short stories, which are interconnected in an ambiguous way which slowly reveals itself as the book goes on – a sort of underlying premise of a specific evil rather than any conjoining narrative.  But, all told, the whole thing turns out to be a lot more clever and satisfying than it might in early days appear.  And the longer it continues, the more Corbeill appears to improve and mature as a writer, though this might simply be my imagination as I became familiarized and comfortable with the style – for obviously I have no way of knowing whether or not the author collated the tales in the order they were written.

There is a genuine darkness to this collection, and some great variation.  It made me think in some ways of the Cloverfield trilogy, with perhaps a Richard Laymon gut-punch element, or perhaps Cloud Atlas, yet I’m not sure why; perhaps it is the sheer difference between the stories, although without the discernible timeline of the latter.  I would absolutely define it as horror, though, with an interesting slant and some genuinely intriguing stories.  And it doesn’t overcomplicate or take itself too seriously; the author had fun writing this, I suspect.  It’s an equally appealing one to read, at an hour or two here and there; to be honest, you’ll read it in a couple of nights – preferably rainy, cosy, eerie nights in a strange place alone…