David Ward

This story starts from an author's mysterious disappearance, but while significant, this is secondary to the greater mystery of her account of her life, left for her heirs to read, which makes up the body of the book. A life full of dark magic, strange faeries and stupid adults who don't believe they exist. Yes, we're in Unreliable Narrator territory again, something which is immediately obvious. But unlike many books using this device, this isn't intended as a dawning realisation to the reader. Instead, it prepares the ground for a bigger question: assuming she believes her account, why would she think that? This is the start of a wild ride touching on some seriously dark themes, which would be huge spoilers if I expanded on them. Bruce's great strength here is in gesturing towards the answers, not telling you. Though she sometimes gives the reader a helping hand, there are major events which require you to interpret the narrative based on what we're told and what we know of reality. The result is a slowly unfolding tale of a deeply traumatic life, which still leaves room for speculation and uncertainty. You Let Me In isn't a comfortable story. There's real darkness at its heart, way beyond the often creepy faerie folk. But nor is it generally graphic about the details. And the journey is absolutely worth it.

Reprieve is a horror story, but not a normal one. It discloses the ending early on and leaves you wondering how it came to pass, narrating in a series of flashbacks that explore identity, racism, power, sexual exploitation and more, some with a lighter touch than others. For all that the protagonists' stories drew me in, I struggled to believe in the live haunting experience at the centre of the story, and especially its finances, given the resources involved and the number of daily visitors it could accommodate. But the genre requires some suspension of disbelief, so I'll let that go. More of a frustration was the untidy loose ends left flapping around at the end. Motivation was never truly addressed, let alone explained, and while it's possible the final scene is brilliantly conceived and went over my head, I found it an odd conclusion. Solid horror, some really interesting social commentary and a gripping read, but somehow not entirely satisfying.

I first heard of this book by being told that the action kicks off so quickly, "there's a leper on fire by page 7". That's not an exaggeration, and it's not misleading - no flashbacks are involved, and the plot progresses directly from this point. I raced through every twist as the story developed and things looked ever darker for those on board the Saardam. My only fear (as when I read Turton's previous novel, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle) was that there was too much plot and too many mysteries to tie up in a satisfactory conclusion. But as with "Deaths", the resolution was as neat as I could possibly have hoped for, which is some feat after a 500 page rollercoaster of twists and turns. I daren't say much about the plot for fear of spoilers, so I'll just say: read this book. Enjoy the ride. After "Deaths", I wondered how Turton could follow such a wild, genre-busting story. Apparently, by writing a different kind of wild, genre-busting story! He's now clearly on my radar as an author to watch closely, and I can't wait to see what he does next.

It would be unfair to call this a truly awful book. The storyline moves along with some decent insights into human behaviour. But it's a book which is written to serve the purpose of delivering a message, and a distinctly saccharine one at that, which left me very much underwhelmed. Your mileage may vary. Albom believes in a Christian God, which is fine. And he wants to convert you, which is his right, just as it's your right to disregard his proselytising. But he attempts to do that through the medium of fiction, which I find results in weak, superficial arguments (presented as deep emotional insight) and poor fiction. As with other "agenda" fiction I've read, the story is contorted to fit the desired conclusion so that I find it poses more questions than it answers. Compare and contrast with Stuart Turton's excellent "The Devil and the Dark Water", in which supernatural events are treated as fact but the reader always suspects there must be a rational explanation. In Albom's writing, supernatural claims aren't grand, but even when objections are raised against them, I was persuaded that these objections were destined to be knocked down like so many paper tigers. Clearly, I'm not Albom's target audience and he won't lose much sleep over this review. But for anyone unsure about reading this, I hope this provides a useful counterpoint to gushing "so deep and inspiring" reviews from people predisposed to agree with the final clunking message.