“No on can see it, the life they stole, Your body’s here, but not your soul…”
Readers can look forward to Simon Holt’s breakout novel, The Devouring: Sorry Night, this fall.
Holt introduces Reggie Halloway a horror thirsty fifteen year old, and her cute little brother Henry who Reggie began raising after their mother walked out on them and their oblivious father the year before. Though she loves the eight year old, Reggie resents having to cook, clean, and as her best friend Aaron describes, “be a bigger bummer” working as mother to her little brother. When Henry has a babysitter, Reggie finds sanctuary at her job in Something Wicked bookstore. Owned by the elusive Eben whose background is as interesting as the store itself. There is of course Reggie’s daydream love, Quinn, the town’s golden boy. He is the one piece of her life that Aaron cannot appreciate, though they both share the same passion for all things gory.
Reggie explains her healthy addiction for horror as practice for real life.
The hobby becomes an icy reality after she reads a journal detailing the existence and crimes of the Vours. (Creatures like the bogeyman who arrive on Sorry Night and steal the souls of scared children.) Henry’s soul is kidnapped and locked in a prison of his own worst fears; his body occupied by a Chuckie sized spirit reminiscent of Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son. Reggie and Aaron must figure out, even with obvious clues, that Vours do exist and how to exorcise the little man.
In order to combat the creatures, the two must encounter their own fears. A challenge they get help from by Reggie’s boss, the mysterious Eben, and the journal’s doomed author.
There are definitely parts where the reader is reminded that this is Holt’s debut novel. He does a good job at being unpredictable, but a couple of the “frightening” scenes are comical and unrealistic, like when Reggie decides to overcome her fear by eating a spider sized Vour. You just don’t do that, no how symbolic the idea. Eating magical villains is just a no-no. There are several intense scenes, like Hatchet wielding clowns and a cracked frozen lake, towards the end, but nothing unbearable. Some little points that are supposed to reach the audience emotionally hit too shallow to be considered moving, particularly the last sentence.
But if you don’t mind a mild scare, and a push to fight your own fears, pick it up September 1 online or at your local bookstore.
If you are new to the horror genre, this story would be a good introduction.
I found the Vours (they are pronounced like vour in de-vour ) to have the potential for real quality terror, they can steal bodies and souls after all and appear to have no weaknesses, but they, as creatures of fear, are never completely explained. Their basic organization is not even really hinted to until the last few pages. Sure I can appreciate a little mystery for the sequel (yeah, there’s a sequel), but in order to really hook a devoted and following readership you got to give them a big juicy follow me factor, like Kelly Armstrong’s book the The Summoning: that came out July this summer. True the ending really drove me crazy, but she reached he goal as an author, there is no way I’ll miss picking up the next in the series, The Awakening, scheduled to come out in May of 2009. I can’t say, The Devouring really had the same effect. I’ll probably pick up the sequel because I’ve got to know Reggie and her family and want to find out what happens to them, but I can definitely wait the year or more for its arrival
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