Hunger by Melvin Burgess
Feb. 22nd, 2013 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
”Beth knew that things had moved on when she woke one morning to find dirt in her bed.
It wasn’t the fine soil that you might find in a bag of compose but dirt from the ground, damp and gritty against her skin.
She lay there for a while trying to remember how this had happened. Gradually, she became aware of a deep ache in her arms and legs and in her back, as if she had been doing heavy work.
She say up, rubbed her hands down her body and encountered a worm flattened under her bottom.
She picked it off and look curiously at it. She ran her tongue in her mouth.
Grit.”
When Beth wakes up one morning covered in dirt, she puts it down to an extreme case of sleep-walking.
But when reports of a desecrated grave start to circulate, her night-time wanderings take on a sinister air.
Soon the city is being plagued by strange sightings and sudden disappearances.
Beth knows that something is changing within her.
Something that’s filling her with an urgent, desperate hunger that demands to be satisfied – at any cost …
When Beth finds herself waking up covered in dirt and with no memory of what happened to her during the night, she assumes that she’s just been sleepwalking. But when she finds herself gorging on food to try and stem an insatiable appetite and hears stories of a local desecrated grave she realises that something is changing within her. Something evil.
As Beth, helped by her protective elder brother Louis, best friend Coll and sometime boyfriend, Ivan try to work out what’s happening to her, they discover an old family secret linked to an ancient evil. An evil that wants to use Beth to take control of the world …
Melvin Burgess’s horror novel is an unsatisfying shlock-filled story that lacks the rich characterisation and sharp turns of phrase that characterise his other work. Although the action kept coming there were holes in the story that I couldn’t overlook and as such, it didn’t work for me as a horror novel and it left me very disappointed.
Beth’s actually an interesting character. I liked the fact that she’s got no illusions about the womanising Ivan and is happy to use him for sex without accepting his offers of commitment and I believed in her friendship with Coll. However, I didn’t buy into the big revelation about her past, mainly because I didn’t believe that she had no recollection of it and there was no hint from her brother or father (even an accidental one) and I was never really sure how her ability worked or why it was so important.
Burgess plays with ghoul mythology but it doesn’t really seem to go anywhere, instead coalescing into a bog standard big bad villain who wants to use Beth for nefarious and underdeveloped purposes. Similarly underdeveloped are Ivan, Louis and Coll who aren’t much more than stereotypes. As such they have a disposable feel that stopped me from feeling sorry for them when bad things happen.
There are a number of missing scenes in the book that jarred with me – most notably with a character death that came out of left field and felt a little cheap. I also found the ending unsatisfying and open-ended, which I suspect is to leave the way open for a sequel. I’m normally a big fan of Burgess’s work but this just didn’t work for me and as such, I wouldn’t read any planned sequel.
The Verdict:
Melvin Burgess’s horror novel is an unsatisfying shlock-filled story that lacks the rich characterisation and sharp turns of phrase that characterise his other work. Although the action kept coming there were holes in the story that I couldn’t overlook and as such, it didn’t work for me as a horror novel and it left me very disappointed. I’m normally a big fan of Burgess’s work but this just didn’t work for me and as such, I wouldn’t read any planned sequel.
It wasn’t the fine soil that you might find in a bag of compose but dirt from the ground, damp and gritty against her skin.
She lay there for a while trying to remember how this had happened. Gradually, she became aware of a deep ache in her arms and legs and in her back, as if she had been doing heavy work.
She say up, rubbed her hands down her body and encountered a worm flattened under her bottom.
She picked it off and look curiously at it. She ran her tongue in her mouth.
Grit.”
When Beth wakes up one morning covered in dirt, she puts it down to an extreme case of sleep-walking.
But when reports of a desecrated grave start to circulate, her night-time wanderings take on a sinister air.
Soon the city is being plagued by strange sightings and sudden disappearances.
Beth knows that something is changing within her.
Something that’s filling her with an urgent, desperate hunger that demands to be satisfied – at any cost …
When Beth finds herself waking up covered in dirt and with no memory of what happened to her during the night, she assumes that she’s just been sleepwalking. But when she finds herself gorging on food to try and stem an insatiable appetite and hears stories of a local desecrated grave she realises that something is changing within her. Something evil.
As Beth, helped by her protective elder brother Louis, best friend Coll and sometime boyfriend, Ivan try to work out what’s happening to her, they discover an old family secret linked to an ancient evil. An evil that wants to use Beth to take control of the world …
Melvin Burgess’s horror novel is an unsatisfying shlock-filled story that lacks the rich characterisation and sharp turns of phrase that characterise his other work. Although the action kept coming there were holes in the story that I couldn’t overlook and as such, it didn’t work for me as a horror novel and it left me very disappointed.
Beth’s actually an interesting character. I liked the fact that she’s got no illusions about the womanising Ivan and is happy to use him for sex without accepting his offers of commitment and I believed in her friendship with Coll. However, I didn’t buy into the big revelation about her past, mainly because I didn’t believe that she had no recollection of it and there was no hint from her brother or father (even an accidental one) and I was never really sure how her ability worked or why it was so important.
Burgess plays with ghoul mythology but it doesn’t really seem to go anywhere, instead coalescing into a bog standard big bad villain who wants to use Beth for nefarious and underdeveloped purposes. Similarly underdeveloped are Ivan, Louis and Coll who aren’t much more than stereotypes. As such they have a disposable feel that stopped me from feeling sorry for them when bad things happen.
There are a number of missing scenes in the book that jarred with me – most notably with a character death that came out of left field and felt a little cheap. I also found the ending unsatisfying and open-ended, which I suspect is to leave the way open for a sequel. I’m normally a big fan of Burgess’s work but this just didn’t work for me and as such, I wouldn’t read any planned sequel.
The Verdict:
Melvin Burgess’s horror novel is an unsatisfying shlock-filled story that lacks the rich characterisation and sharp turns of phrase that characterise his other work. Although the action kept coming there were holes in the story that I couldn’t overlook and as such, it didn’t work for me as a horror novel and it left me very disappointed. I’m normally a big fan of Burgess’s work but this just didn’t work for me and as such, I wouldn’t read any planned sequel.
