Cabin at the End of the World (2019, HarperCollins Publishers)
336 pages
English language
Published Nov. 11, 2019 by HarperCollins Publishers.
"The Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A Head Full of Ghosts gives a new twist to the home invasion horror story in a heart-palpitating novel of psychological suspense that recalls Stephen King's Misery, Ruth Ware's In a Dark, Dark Wood, and Jack Ketchum's cult hit The Girl Next Door"--
Paul Tremblay writes emotional horror. Cabin is eschatological, excruciating, terrifying and hard to predict. As usual Tremblay is sincere and fearless in his writing. Violent, upsetting, but ultimately kind of beautiful.
An entertaining read that was fun and went quick, but didn't break a lot of new ground for me.
I can't help but compare this to the movie (which was also pretty average) and ultimately think the choices the movie made worked better. Leonard's personality also came through much more in the film.
The prose showed occasional flashes, but was ultimately pretty straightforward. The author tried some innovative things with point of view, including narrating the last chapter in third person plural, but I don't think they really paid off in a significant way.
I enjoyed the writers notes at the end about particular symbols and the writer's process, and I wish more books would do that.
If this were a Stephen King book, it would be in about the 40th percentile of Stephen King books.
