bazhsw
3/16/2021
(minor spoiler in review)
I have mixed thoughts about this one. Adam Nevill's 'No One Gets It Out Alive' is probably my favourite horror book of the last decade or so - I loved it, it's been ages since a book genuinely scared me so it was always on my list to go back and read more of his works.
This is his debut novel and it kind of shows. There is clearly a bucket load of research, a desire to express oneself through very evocative descriptions that nod to a bleak gothic undertone and yet it just missed the spot for me.
I really wanted to like it, and maybe my expectations were high but the first half of the book is really slow. Not a lot happens, the chapters sometimes meander and I was really struggling to care.
The novel presents a lot of threads that the reader wants to tie together and they are kind of left there waiting.... When Nevill decides to start pulling everything together the novel becomes 'un-put-down-able'. I was picking up the book every moment I could to devour another chapter and see where it took me.
There are definitely bonus points for 'heavy metal heroes' (and there were a few little Easter Eggs for 80's metalheads there). There are also bonus points for the wonderful academic setting - everything is dusty corridors, towering spires, imposing ruins....the environment is a strong character too, with the bleak sands and the dark skies and an almost persistent wind and rain adding to a perpetual sense of foreboding.
My brain however couldn't cope with some of the elements of the novel - sure it is an occult horror book but the local police were clearly useless and the 'what happens next' after the book felt a little unsatisfying. Not being funny, but St. Andrews isn't for poor kids so I kind of think the way certain elements of the book progress to be quite implausible. We have to accept EVERYONE has a big brush to sweep the aftermath under the carpet.
I also didn't like the 'femme fatale' character. I know what the words in the book said but I never felt her sexually charged power or really her malevolence come through. Putting black boots on a young woman doesn't really hit the spot. I just felt Dante was a bit pathetic with her rather than feel I was bewitched as a reader with him.
Minor spoiler.....
(There is a far better example of this archetype later in the book to be honest)
I will read more of Nevill, I feel a bit harsh scoring it 3 but the early sections dragging means I can't rate higher