Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stand by me with an Evil twist!, 19 Jun 2007
I picked up this book having read a few others from Brian Keene (The Rising + City of the Dead), normally i only read anything involving Zombies or 'End of the world' type stories. But i thought i'll give it a go seeing as i loved his other two books and i must say i was not disappointed, as soon as i started reading it i was hooked, I couldn't put it down i just had to finish it there and then.
The book is well written and the quality of the writing is excellent, something that's been sadly lacking in a number of novels I've read recently.
I'm not going to spoil it for you by telling you what happens or anything so the only way i can describe it to you is think of the classic movie 'Stand by me' meets the horror movie 'The Descent'.
This book is brilliant buy it and read it !
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Childhood Nightmares Come To Life, 23 Jan 2008
After the recent apocalyptic horror novels I've read by Brian Keene, "Ghoul" was a nice change (although if you've read his other books you won't fail to notice the way this one ties in with them). This book is much smaller in scope, and is about much more personal horrors. And the ghoul of the title is only part of it. This book is perhaps more about the perils of childhood and the value of friendship than it is about the ghoul. On most occasions, the book would get a really low rating from me just for that. I do not get excited by characterisation; if I buy a horror book I want more monsters and less "human drama". But I actually bought right into the characterisation in this one.
Ghoul's most impressive achievement is that it genuinely made me feel like I was a kid in my early teens again. I sympathised with the kids in the story, and shared their horror and pain, because I felt like I was one of them. Ghoul achieves the same effect as Stephen King's "It", in bringing that realistic, gritty sense of nostalgia to the reader, but does so in only 300-odd pages, while King took over 1000. This is a testament to Keene's talent as an author. He has become one of my favourite horror writers.
Overall, this is a great childhood, "Stand By Me"-esque novel, and a good horror novel. It kept me turning pages because Keene was able to make me suspend my disbelief and believe that I knew these kids. I believed them when they said they were afraid, or upset, or angry, and shared those emotions with them. I hated Barry's dad just as much as they did. I felt devastated along with Timmy when his dad tore up his comic book collection.
And, just for a while, I believed in monsters.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Ghoul Disappoints, 13 Jan 2008
I liked what Brian Keene did with his great zombie reads "The Rising" and "City of the Dead." Both are good apocalyptic "Dawn of the Dead (Divimax Edition)" style thrillers with plenty of blood and gore to satisfy the masses, and well developed characters. To me, Brian's one of the rising stars of the Horror genre, and I look forward to each new book he puts out. However, I know it's impossible to hit a homerun each time at bat, and that brings us to "Ghoul."
"Ghoul" just didn't work for me at all. It had all the ingredients of a great read, but it seemed as if they were all hastily mixed together, and prematurely taken out of the oven. There are some really good coming-of-age novels out there -- Robert McCammon's "Boy's Life" and Stephen King's "Different Seasons (Signet)," come to mind - but this one isn't one of them. The basic components are there - the bonds of friendship, the last summer of childhood, and the transition from child to adult - but they fall flat. One of the biggest aggravations of the book was the excessive 80's references, almost done in a forced namedropping fashion. After a while, I began to think, okay...I get it; this takes place in 1984....
The character development in "Ghoul" was in need of more...well... development. Timmy Graco, the main character, seemed wooden and wise beyond his years. I have read several reviews already that make this point, stating that Keene often confuses his voice with that of twelve-year-old Timmy's. Timmy's dad, Randy Graco, I thought, had some major development issues. Was he an irrational screwball or a loving father? If anything, he was portrayed as a borderline schizophrenic, teetering between loving, understanding father, and despoiler of childhood imagination. Probably the worst developed of all was the ghoul himself. We get a little bit of history, but not much more than a legend relayed by the town's reverend. And I don't think the ghoul had a name; if he did, I missed it. I would have loved to have known more about how the race came about, more about its motivations - for instance, why it chose this particular town. And as for his physical description and the way he spoke, I could only picture a scrawny, nude Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons."
"Ghoul" attempts to reach the depth of highly regarded coming of age novels such as "Boy's Life," (which I HIGHLY recommend), but misses the mark by a wide margin.
As I mentioned at the outset of this review, I like Brian Keene's work. He's written some really good Horror novels -- "The Rising" and "Dead Sea" are well done and fun reads. "Ghoul," however, isn't one of them.
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