Beyond by Graham McNamee
Mar. 6th, 2016 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Jane is not your typical teen. She and her best friend Lexi call themselves the Creep Sisters.
Only Lexi knows why Jane is different from anyone else: her own shadow seems to pull her into near-fatal accidents.
Jane is determined to find out why these terrifying things happen, and to overcome her shadow enemy. But her sleuthing with Lexi connects her own horrors to the secret history of a serial killer …
16-year-old Jane is accident prone. She’s had several near-fatal accidents (from drinking bleach to almost falling in front of a train) and has just survived shooting herself in the head with a nail gun. Her parents are worried that she’s suicidal and she has to see a counsellor but she can’t tell anyone the truth because then they really would think she was crazy: her shadow is trying to kill her.
The only person who believes her is her best friend, Lexi. The nail gun incident leaves Jane determined to find out what’s driving her shadow to try and kill her and what she can do to stop it, but the more she and Jane investigate, the more they begin to realise that Jane’s shadow is linked to a series of disappearances that appear to be the work of a serial killer …
Graham McNamee’s YA horror is billed as “If Stephen King wrote YA”, which is a big name to live up to and, to be honest, I’m not sure that it does McNamee any favours. This is a shame because there’s a lot to enjoy in this book – it’s pacey and the first half is well structured with some great slow build creepiness as the reader gradually learns about what happened to Jane and for how long her shadow’s been trying to kill her. The friendship between Jane and Lexi is also well handled and feels both natural and believable (particularly the dialogue between the two which crackles with humour and affection). I also liked the relationship between Jane and her worried parents, although the full implications of her being made to wear a ring to track her movements could have been explored more (or at least, I’d have expected Jane to kick back more than she does). Unfortunately the book falls apart in the final quarter as the serial killer elements get revealed, which is treated in such a cursory manner that it robs the story of all the tension and suspense that McNamee had worked up in the preceding pages, especially as the killer gets very little page time and is pretty cliché. That aside, this is an enjoyable enough read for any teen seeking a horror read and I will definitely check out McNamee’s other work.
The Verdict:
Graham McNamee’s YA horror is billed as “If Stephen King wrote YA”, which is a big name to live up to and, to be honest, I’m not sure that it does McNamee any favours. This is a shame because there’s a lot to enjoy in this book – it’s pacey and the first half is well structured with some great slow build creepiness as the reader gradually learns about what happened to Jane and for how long her shadow’s been trying to kill her. The friendship between Jane and Lexi is also well handled and feels both natural and believable (particularly the dialogue between the two which crackles with humour and affection). I also liked the relationship between Jane and her worried parents, although the full implications of her being made to wear a ring to track her movements could have been explored more (or at least, I’d have expected Jane to kick back more than she does). Unfortunately the book falls apart in the final quarter as the serial killer elements get revealed, which is treated in such a cursory manner that it robs the story of all the tension and suspense that McNamee had worked up in the preceding pages, especially as the killer gets very little page time and is pretty cliché. That aside, this is an enjoyable enough read for any teen seeking a horror read and I will definitely check out McNamee’s other work.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
Jane is not your typical teen. She and her best friend Lexi call themselves the Creep Sisters.
Only Lexi knows why Jane is different from anyone else: her own shadow seems to pull her into near-fatal accidents.
Jane is determined to find out why these terrifying things happen, and to overcome her shadow enemy. But her sleuthing with Lexi connects her own horrors to the secret history of a serial killer …
16-year-old Jane is accident prone. She’s had several near-fatal accidents (from drinking bleach to almost falling in front of a train) and has just survived shooting herself in the head with a nail gun. Her parents are worried that she’s suicidal and she has to see a counsellor but she can’t tell anyone the truth because then they really would think she was crazy: her shadow is trying to kill her.
The only person who believes her is her best friend, Lexi. The nail gun incident leaves Jane determined to find out what’s driving her shadow to try and kill her and what she can do to stop it, but the more she and Jane investigate, the more they begin to realise that Jane’s shadow is linked to a series of disappearances that appear to be the work of a serial killer …
Graham McNamee’s YA horror is billed as “If Stephen King wrote YA”, which is a big name to live up to and, to be honest, I’m not sure that it does McNamee any favours. This is a shame because there’s a lot to enjoy in this book – it’s pacey and the first half is well structured with some great slow build creepiness as the reader gradually learns about what happened to Jane and for how long her shadow’s been trying to kill her. The friendship between Jane and Lexi is also well handled and feels both natural and believable (particularly the dialogue between the two which crackles with humour and affection). I also liked the relationship between Jane and her worried parents, although the full implications of her being made to wear a ring to track her movements could have been explored more (or at least, I’d have expected Jane to kick back more than she does). Unfortunately the book falls apart in the final quarter as the serial killer elements get revealed, which is treated in such a cursory manner that it robs the story of all the tension and suspense that McNamee had worked up in the preceding pages, especially as the killer gets very little page time and is pretty cliché. That aside, this is an enjoyable enough read for any teen seeking a horror read and I will definitely check out McNamee’s other work.
The Verdict:
Graham McNamee’s YA horror is billed as “If Stephen King wrote YA”, which is a big name to live up to and, to be honest, I’m not sure that it does McNamee any favours. This is a shame because there’s a lot to enjoy in this book – it’s pacey and the first half is well structured with some great slow build creepiness as the reader gradually learns about what happened to Jane and for how long her shadow’s been trying to kill her. The friendship between Jane and Lexi is also well handled and feels both natural and believable (particularly the dialogue between the two which crackles with humour and affection). I also liked the relationship between Jane and her worried parents, although the full implications of her being made to wear a ring to track her movements could have been explored more (or at least, I’d have expected Jane to kick back more than she does). Unfortunately the book falls apart in the final quarter as the serial killer elements get revealed, which is treated in such a cursory manner that it robs the story of all the tension and suspense that McNamee had worked up in the preceding pages, especially as the killer gets very little page time and is pretty cliché. That aside, this is an enjoyable enough read for any teen seeking a horror read and I will definitely check out McNamee’s other work.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
