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The Site
For years a quiet brownstone stood there, a safe haven where children played and families grew old together. Now a glass giant had taken its place, a towering monolith that glared forbiddingly at the world. Most New Yorkers hurried past the building without a second glance, but every time Valerie Harris entered its dark doors her blood turned to ice. It was as if something sinister, almost tangibly evil, dwelled there.
- GenresHorror
307 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1988
30 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 26, 2019
This started off as an interesting enough idea; a building that was killing previous tenants that had seemingly betrayed it or wronged it in some way. And perhaps making those deaths appear eerily similar to accidental deaths or murders of the past. But, alas, it was not to be.
This book as a lot of all over the place going on. It's essentially impossible to figure out what month, or day, or time of year, or even the year itself that the action is taking place in. The story just kind of leaps and jumps and skips and hops all over the place, racing to some kind of predestined conclusion that just doesn't make that much sense when you think about it. Especially when you think about the "twist" ending.
This is also only very very very loosely a horror novel. There is very little horror to be had in the entire book. A few creepy dreams here, a couple of death scenes, a few accident and injury scenes, an animal maiming, but truly none of it really amounts to much by way of the horror department. This is more like an incredibly drawn out soap opera, a battle of wills and love. It's more about Jennifer and her relationships with a few people around her in everyday life. It just also happens to have some kind of killer entity, or spirit, or god, or somefuckingthing that's killing people for some reason. And perhaps Jennifer is the reincarnated abortion of Valerie because she was born premature. Shit like that. Soap opera stuff disguised as a horror novel.
The characters are okay at best. They're fleshed out and human. They make sense to some degree and do the required dumb shit for horror novels. None of them really does anything to be outwardly annoying, and yet I found almost all of them to be just that; incredibly annoying. Curt Krieger was the only character I really liked and he made painfully little sense. His war flashbacks and PTSD and adoration of rocks and underground and silence were handled really well; but his obsession and his murder-suicide plot device don't make that much sense. Nor his confusion between two women who, by that time, probably didn't look very much like each other. Most of the other characters were just kind of whatever. Valerie and Jennifer were very well fleshed out and fully created characters, but that didn't save them from being boring. And Zach, just shut the fuck up.
The dialogue here was really interesting in the sense that it sounded like no humans I have ever met 80% of the time. These rambling speeches about buildings and structures and architecture, no one talks like that. The prolonged and obnoxious metaphysical and philosophical wars these characters wage to each other in conversation is unlike any conversation, sober or otherwise, that I've had to suffer through.
In the end, this was just a pretty disappointing book. It had some cool ideas in it, and the central concept was really interesting, but it very quickly lost its way. I love the admiration Melisand March has for New York City, and I was really impressed by the way she incorporated real life tragedies and accidents into her storyline. I would have liked a lot more of that, God knows there's enough of it in NYC. I also really love her writing. She is a fantastic writer with a real flair for making mundane things seem wonderous. While the story never really engaged me, her writing impressed me with every chapter. It's her writing style and beautiful descriptions and breakdowns of the internal workings of people and the world that bump this one up half a star. And with that being said, I'm sure you can all guess this is not going to be recommended by me anytime soon.
This book as a lot of all over the place going on. It's essentially impossible to figure out what month, or day, or time of year, or even the year itself that the action is taking place in. The story just kind of leaps and jumps and skips and hops all over the place, racing to some kind of predestined conclusion that just doesn't make that much sense when you think about it. Especially when you think about the "twist" ending.
This is also only very very very loosely a horror novel. There is very little horror to be had in the entire book. A few creepy dreams here, a couple of death scenes, a few accident and injury scenes, an animal maiming, but truly none of it really amounts to much by way of the horror department. This is more like an incredibly drawn out soap opera, a battle of wills and love. It's more about Jennifer and her relationships with a few people around her in everyday life. It just also happens to have some kind of killer entity, or spirit, or god, or somefuckingthing that's killing people for some reason. And perhaps Jennifer is the reincarnated abortion of Valerie because she was born premature. Shit like that. Soap opera stuff disguised as a horror novel.
The characters are okay at best. They're fleshed out and human. They make sense to some degree and do the required dumb shit for horror novels. None of them really does anything to be outwardly annoying, and yet I found almost all of them to be just that; incredibly annoying. Curt Krieger was the only character I really liked and he made painfully little sense. His war flashbacks and PTSD and adoration of rocks and underground and silence were handled really well; but his obsession and his murder-suicide plot device don't make that much sense. Nor his confusion between two women who, by that time, probably didn't look very much like each other. Most of the other characters were just kind of whatever. Valerie and Jennifer were very well fleshed out and fully created characters, but that didn't save them from being boring. And Zach, just shut the fuck up.
The dialogue here was really interesting in the sense that it sounded like no humans I have ever met 80% of the time. These rambling speeches about buildings and structures and architecture, no one talks like that. The prolonged and obnoxious metaphysical and philosophical wars these characters wage to each other in conversation is unlike any conversation, sober or otherwise, that I've had to suffer through.
In the end, this was just a pretty disappointing book. It had some cool ideas in it, and the central concept was really interesting, but it very quickly lost its way. I love the admiration Melisand March has for New York City, and I was really impressed by the way she incorporated real life tragedies and accidents into her storyline. I would have liked a lot more of that, God knows there's enough of it in NYC. I also really love her writing. She is a fantastic writer with a real flair for making mundane things seem wonderous. While the story never really engaged me, her writing impressed me with every chapter. It's her writing style and beautiful descriptions and breakdowns of the internal workings of people and the world that bump this one up half a star. And with that being said, I'm sure you can all guess this is not going to be recommended by me anytime soon.
Displaying 1 of 1 review