Ghost story

Eh, what to say, what to say? Koontz is definitely a master of suspense, and this book is no deviation from that. Other than that, I felt this book was just okay. Like I said in my update, either Koontz has a HUGE vocabulary, or he is a "thesaurus writer" and it shows throughout this book. Besides the suspense aspect of the book, I didn't find much more in it. Everything else seemed to wrap up way to easily, like his plot just took the easy way out. Past the suspense, the more I think about it, the plot seemed pretty darn thin, actually. And all the while it seemed as if Koontz was trying to go for the biggest gross out factors he could in each of his characters, or, well, I guess, in each of his antagonists, and even including the retired priest, who wasn't an antagonist, or protagonist, much more of an ancillary character I guess.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say here, I guess, is that this book is a nice little suspenseful read, good for a beach or vacation easy read, but not much more than that. It won't really make you think, or probably remember to much of it a couple months after you read it, unless it has you checking behind closed doors or too carefully in mirrors. ( )

This book was very disturbing to me. The detail of the crimes was more than I was comfortable with and I came away feeling very unsettled. I read to be entertained, to learn, or be forced to think about things in a new light.

That being said, it was a classic Dean Koontz that kept you on the edge of you seat. So if you are a Dean Koontz fan you will probably enjoy this book. ( )

This was a great book - mixed with paranormal, mystery, and suspense - definitely a real page turner - kept me up into long hours of the night reading this one - if you love Dean Koontz, then this book is a must have for your collection. ( )

I was going to just say this is terrible and stay away, but didn't want to be lazy.

Honestly this book was a waste of time. At around the 50 percent mark I started to skim in self defense. At the 75 percent mark I was actively hoping the family in this book would die since that at least would rise to interesting. At the 100 percent mark I loathed everything and that included Legos (do not ask, I beg of you) and golden retrievers.

I refuse to go back and look up people's names so just know the main guy we care about is scared something dreadful is about to befall his family due to the similarity of a murder that occurs that leaves one boy alive with his whole family dead. Twist is the boy did it.

Guy #1 is an orphan after a serial killer murdered his whole family and to make things worse, raped his two sisters before killing them. He survived due to shooting serial killer. By the way you don't get any of that information til almost I think at the 20 percent mark. Once again I refuse to look back, so don't ask. Guy #1 is a LAPD detective (most of Koontz's characters are) and somehow has managed to marry a millionaire artist or some such. I don't know. So Guy #1 and Wife have three kids (son, daughter #1, and daughter #2). While Guy #1 goes around having feelings and dread he doesn't tell his family a thing and goes along while increasingly horrible things happen.

There are so many characters in this book I can't keep them straight. There is the evil bad guy and for some odd reason Koontz adds his POV via journal entries and man has evil never been so boring. Also, this whole dude's persona is freaking similar to the big bad in "Hideaway" so I yawned through his mess. Also I would argue he takes some cues from Fallen (Denzel Washington movie) so once again this book kept reading like something I had read and seen before.

Guy #1 starts tracking down other families that he thinks that Big Bad could be aiming for, but once again waits until a ridiculously long time to clue his wife or anyone else in. At one point a poor girl he just talks to is killed and dude drives away and doesn't say a word about it to his wife! I just couldn't with the idiocy of all the people in this book. You want another example? A woman who knows her brother molested her sister (who committed suicide over it) allows the brother to keep coming by to see her family cause she's worried she will make things worse by not allowing him over.

Are. You. Serious?!

Let's not even go into how Daughter #1 is the stupidest child in literary form I can think of at this point in my life. She's 11 and apparently has no sense about stranger danger. A mirror she can reach through which also has a voice in high threatens her she still wants to explore cause Narnia. Yes, I am serious. Guess what, if I can reach through a damn mirror and a voice threatens me, I would be throwing it out of my house.

Bah. I am done.

The writing was terrible throughout. I will say that the initial part of the book (first 5 percent) held promise, but Koontz over writes this book to death. A key point is made about these murders occurring every 33 days, and we literally have Guy #1 just spinning his wheels.

And due to Koontz shifting POVs to each of his family members as well as potential victims of the Big Bad and others this book dragged for hours.

The ending was ludicrous and that's all in going to say.

The book gives an excerpt into a short story about the Big Bad that was just as terrible as the novel so there's that. ( )