The Only Child

DNF.

I usually battle on to the bitter end of a bad book, hoping for redemption or at least for it to move from "bad" to "so bad it's good," but I couldn't with this one. From the main character being a male fantasy of the perfect woman (while she didn't spend time fondling her own breasts, she did possess a perfect and "petite" body, a startling lack of agency in a woman with an alleged Ph.D and a voracious sexual appetite, focused on a vampire who claims to be her Dad. Ugh.), to the idea that a violent offender in a psychiatric prison would be a woman's sexual fantasy, this book made me too angry to continue. Write women as though they were actual people, Mr. Pyper!

Andrew Pyper is a good author. I'm a fan. I have no idea what show more happened here, but there will have to be some seriously good reviews for me to pick up another book by this author. The Killing Circle is a solid and well-written thriller. Read that instead. Unless the thought of a man ripping the ears of a random passer-by is exciting to you. Then you and this book's main character are peas in a pod and I wish you a vampire of your very own. show less

Chilling. Sick. Twisted. Brilliant.
"Have you ever considered that the thing you seek isn't an unnatural being, isn't your long lost father, but yourself?" Pyper is a masterful storyteller, weaving together a horror story that is both intriguing, compassionate, and not exactly so horrid. In finding her father, Lily is thrown into a labyrinth of events that leads her to her own truth and self.
Pyper's characters are multidimensional and fascinating, the plot is simply ingenious, grabbing you and abusing you until you don't want it to let you go. I'm breathless.

* I received an arc from NetGalley for an honest review

The Only Child suffers from trying to be too much at the same time. Its mix of Gothic, horror, psychological thriller, murder mystery, and hint of coming-of-age story does not blend well together; at times, they even fight for dominance. While it is an outstanding premise, this is one novel in which the execution does the story an injustice.

One of the main issues with The Only Child is the characters. Lily starts out being very strongly developed. Independent, aloof, highly intelligent, and emotionally tough, she confronts sociopaths on a daily basis without batting an eye. Her calm demeanor and her ability to remain unruffled in spite of talking with some of the sickest minds in the country are admirable, and one wishes for more show more insight into how she is able to maintain such control under such trying circumstances. Unfortunately, after she meets her mysterious client who claims to be her father, all of those attributes which made her so fascinating disappear. Lily rapidly devolves into an emotional wreck, almost incapable of making decisions for herself. While still intelligent, she loses her common sense and ventures into situations which make no sense for her character. Even though she had no problems remaining independent and isolated for her adult life, suddenly she is unable to be alone and laments her lack of parents. While meant to highlight her lack of control over her client, her devolution nonetheless is irksome because it did not have to be so complete and so rapid.

Michael is also a flawed character in that the development of his character is weak. Claiming to be the origins behind Frankenstein, Mr. Hyde, and Dracula provides him with an interesting backstory, albeit slightly fuzzy on the details department. His personal origins in particular are superficial, warranting more of a comment than a full description. Once he meets Lily in person though and he stops providing clues about his past, he too devolves. As with Lily, the rapidity of this weakens the story because it becomes a crucial plot point later in the novel. The reasons given for his transformation into the monster do not make sense. Moreover, they erase any development his character exhibited to that point. One leaves the story wishing Michael’s character had been treated differently.

The rest of the story is a blur of cat and mouse chases. Sometimes this occurs between Michael and Lily or vice versa. Sometimes, there is an additional threat of a mysterious government agency and/or bounty hunters who will stop at nothing to take Michael. As with Lily and Michael, the addition of these shadowy militant figures comes with little in the way of explanation and seem to provide the story with nothing more than a third party to confuse Lily regarding who she should trust.

The ending is the biggest disappointment of the novel with its last stand mentality. Coming after a very sudden shift in loyalties, it too is rushed with a final scene that makes one think Mr. Pyper left room for sequels. After an entire novel in which much of the violence occurs offstage, readers now get the full gore treatment. The propensity for violence was always an undercurrent of the story, which added a nice layer of suspense. The abrupt shift to shown violence is not necessarily a surprise, but one cannot help but feel it would have been a stronger story had the violence remained offstage.

With its mention of the top three original monsters in literature, it feels like The Only Child should have been a much better story. Unfortunately, the two main characters never really evoke sympathy. In fact, Lily becomes downright childish at times as she becomes unable to access the professional demeanor and intelligence that made her so compelling a figure in the beginning. Similarly, Michael’s mercurial shift from man to monster to man seems arbitrary, established merely as a convenient plot point rather than remaining true to his character. By the time one gets to the additional men also out to get Lily and/or Michael, the story devolves into a free-for-all that throws logic to the wind. If Mr. Pyper had picked just one type of story to write, The Only Child would have been much stronger. Instead, it becomes an example of how playing with multiple genres might not be the best approach for a story. show less

Pyper doesn't write your standard horror. It's a little quieter, a lot more "thinking man's" horror. But, without spoiling anything, I can say, this is likely the best damn books he's written since Lost Girls.

And, while he's still firmly into more quiet horror—thinking man's horror—this time, he definitely raises the stakes. He brings the action.

Despite one of the cover blurbs' proclamation that Pyper could be the next Stephen King—of which I completely disagree, along with damn near every single other author that's been touted as the next King—I think Pyper's definitely coming into his own. He'll never be Stephen King, but he'll be Andrew Pyper.

And that ain't a bad thing.

When Dr Lily Domick was six-years-old, her mother was killed, ripped apart possibly by a bear – except, if it was a bear, why didn’t it eat the body and why are there no tracks leading to and away from their door. Lily has had to carry the trauma and these questions ever since. It is only made worse when she is assigned to a new patient, one who is charged with a particularly violent crime and who specifically asks for her. He not only admits to the charge but also tells her he knows what really happened to her mother. What follows is a cat-and-mouse chase as he leads her to Hungary and forces her to confront not only him but her past.

I’m not sure what I expected when I started The Only Child by Andrew Pyper but this definitely show more wasn’t it. It started out well, grabbed my attention quickly but unfortunately lost it just as quickly. For one thing, I didn’t much care for Lily or Michael or, well, pretty much anybody. Or perhaps, as others have noted, her feelings towards her ‘father’ were just a bit too creepy. Or perhaps, as Hitchcock pointed out, it’s not the bang but the anticipation of it that makes a good thriller or horror story and here the bang is revealed too early in the tale. Not only that but it just seems to ramble all over the place once it is revealed. I kept putting it down and picking it up days later hoping it would get back to the promise of the first pages. I hoped the ending would save it for me but truth be told, my willing suspension of disbelief was just not up to the challenge of this book.

Thanks to Edelweiss+ and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review show less

Surprisingly, I found this book a compelling read but not too scary, just creepy. It is not something I would normally pick up but the premise caught my attention. From the start, I was hooked. There was certainly a feeling of dread in the first half of the book which had me wanting to read 'just one more chapter.' I loved how Michael was the inspiration for three of the most infamous monsters in literary history - Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dracula and Frankenstein's monster. Michael's backstory was very atmospheric and I found his character far more interesting than Lily's, who was a fairly uninspirational character.

After a great start, which pulled me right in, "The Only Child" became more of a cat and mouse novel, especially in the show more final third of the book, which had me on the edge of my seat. As for the ending, it was prefect! An entertaining, physiological thriller. show less

Ack!! The hardest review to write? One for a book that is well written but just not a genre you particularly enjoy reading. It’s simply a case of a slight mismatch between book & reader, for which I take full responsibility. So here’s the deal. I’ll tell you what I did like & why I think those with a taste for tales of horror with fantastical beasts should snap this up.

The MC is 36 year old Dr. Lily Dominick. Lily is a psychiatrist who works with the scariest, most diseased minds incarcerated at the maximum security Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Centre in NYC. She’s a private, insular woman whose experiences as a child pretty much sealed her fate in terms of career choice.

When Lily was 6, she & her mother were living in a remote show more cabin outside of Fairbanks when the unthinkable happened. It began with a knock at the door. Her memories of that night are hazy at best but what she does remember is the shadow of a large creature standing over her mother’s broken body. The resulting investigation ruled it a bear attack but Lily would beg to differ. Something carried her out to the nearest road where she was found. And even the most well mannered bear doesn’t usually knock before entering.

Lily has a gift for connecting with the “monsters’ in her care & she’ll need all her skills for the latest arrival. He’s a man with no name who claims to be over 200 years old. He seems to know all about her, something he explains with another bombshell. He’s her father.

Over the next 24 hours Lily witnesses events that cause her carefully constructed world to crash & burn. She doesn’t know it yet but it’s the end of normal & she soon sets off on a personal journey that takes her across Europe & back again.

In alternate chapters, we get her father’s story from his journal. He calls himself Michael & tells how he was created in 1811. He’s led a violent & fascinating life, showing his true self to a select few along the way. In an interesting twist he describes how meeting Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker & Robert Louis Stevenson resulted in disappointing versions of himself.

There are other threads to the plot including a shadowy group hunting Michael, a possible love interest for Lily & her gradual recovery of memories surrounding her mother’s death.

The first 25% of the book was a bit slow. We spend a lot of time in Lily’s head & are privy to her every thought, comment, action & memory. She comes across as oddly flat & although the reason for this is explained later, it makes it difficult to connect with her initially. I much preferred the historical chapters detailing Michael’s life. They’re richly atmospheric & really put flesh on the bones of this original character. For me the book got better as it progressed although the love interest angle seemed unnecessary as the whole story revolves around the relationship between Michael & Lily. But either way, it probably won’t prepare you for the ending. It’s a humdinger that leaves the door open for a possible sequel.

So just to be clear…..the rating reflects my enjoyment factor, not the author’s skills as a story teller. If you’re someone who enjoys horror with a twist of fantasy, I urge you to pick up this original tale derived from 3 classics of the genre. show less