Wednesday, October 18, 2017

The Visitors by Catherine Burns- Book Review

It is October and we are getting closer to Halloween. Like most readers, I begin to get into the mood for creepy, scary horror stories. My focus is more the creepy than the gory, so I look for the thrillers and the tense books. When I read the description of The Visitors, I knew this was the right October book.

There is something happening in Marion’s basement. She has heard cries for “Help,” babies crying, and other noises that occur throughout the day. Her brother John is the only other occupant in the house though. He goes downstairs each night and doesn’t tend to return until morning. Marion relies on John because she is not the brightest person, so she ignores the noises she hears.

Marion and John have lived in the house for their entire lives. Their parents had high hopes for John, but not many hopes for Marion. They would travel together and be a family together. Their father would often be with John, while Marion sat with her mother. Marion has seen her father do strange things too, but chose to ignore them, just like her mother did.

As the novel progresses, John has a minor accident which causes him to go to the hospital. Marion must now care for John’s projects in the basement. What will Marion see and what will she do?

This book has creep factor written all through it. There is no guessing what John is up to at all, but the story is the lead up to how we got to this situation. While John is the outright psychopath, the fun of the book is figuring out Marion. She is not an innocent, even though she believes she is. It is this tense line that keeps the book going well.

The entire book is told from Marion’s perspective. She is a pretty unreliable narrator in that she constantly convinces herself that she is innocent in everything and is just a simple woman. It is her unraveling and her leaps to make herself innocent while she justifies her and John’s evil deeds that keeps the book moving. She is not an innocent though and glimpses of that begin to appear in her story too with the thought- are you evil too, when your brother is more evil? Comparative evilness.

This book will not be for everyone. Marion is not treated well by her family or John. She is often verbally abused by her parents and sibling, but she doesn’t always see it that way. We also journey into the basement and see up close what John has in there. This is not an easy scene. It is good solid October horror though and just right for the season.

I gave this one 3.5 stars.

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