REVIEW: Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt @torbooks @thomas_novelist
Hexby Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Tor Books
☠ AVAILABLE NOW ☠
Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay 'til death. Whoever settles, never leaves.
Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a 17th century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters your homes at will. She stands next to your bed for nights on end. Everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened.
The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting, but in so doing send the town spiraling into the dark, medieval practices of the past.
Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a 17th century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters your homes at will. She stands next to your bed for nights on end. Everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened.
The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting, but in so doing send the town spiraling into the dark, medieval practices of the past.
REVIEW:
I usually write my review as soon as I turn that last page, but with this book I had to sit on it for the night and stew on it for a bit. I love the concept of the book. People trapped in a town with a witch doing her thing... popping up wherever she wants to.. on a set course most of the time. No one should bother her and definitely do NOT take the stitches off her mouth or eyes. Get a group of teens and we all know what's going to happen... right?
The beginning of the book was great - a little eerie and what-the-hell-ish for a few chapters. It almost read like a reality show, which is something different and I'm not sure if I liked that or not. Then the middle got muddy. It took me a while to trudge through it as it felt a bit repetitive and some of the characters were just plain annoying. Hell, I suppose it would be repetitive and annoying to be stuck in a town where you basically were monitored all the time, had little to no outside contact and lived under the tyranny of a witch who just won't go away. And then the last third of the book came and I was really happy that I had stuck with it. It definitely was NOT what I was expecting. I was a bit confused and was really happy to have a fellow Bookstagrammer who was also reading it to discuss with. We agree that with all the build up, the last part of the story seemed rushed. From what I understand the ending is different in the translation and now I'm extremely curious as to how it originally ended. If you know, please tell me!
I do love a book that surprises me and this one definitely did that. I certainly walked away with a WTF feeling. I'm still torn. I wanted to love it... but I just ended up being ok with it.
★★★ 1/2
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