Scream, a Book Review

This week's review is Scream, by Mike Dellosso. Mike writes horror/suspense, which I'm slowly learning to love, and Scream was a good way to acclimate myself with the genre. Since I can't seem to get more than 30 pages into Misery yet. I'm building up, see.

While at the writers conference, I met Mike at lunch. Got to talk to him for a bit, hear the back story on how he came to writing, hear about his darling family (saw his beautiful girls and wife at the banquet the last night). He's a gem. My friend, Heather, especially enjoyed getting to know him, since she writes mystery and suspense.

I picked up Scream for my Oatmeal Head, thinking it would be nice summer reading for him. He's not too interested in books, but his computer was recently revoked, so I'm thinking summer reading might now be right up his alley. Scream is a great summer read - not War and Peace, the characters are interesting and I cared enough about them to keep going. I love good character development!

So here's the deal: the main character, Mark, is separated from his wife. He's driving home late one night from work, talking to his best buddy on his cell phone, when the reception goes wonky and blood-curdling screams break in. Hair-raising, pit of Hell screams. Ten minutes later, the friend dies in a fiery car crash. That's the first few pages.

The fun part is that this happens multiple times in the book. Mark gets a phone call, he's talking, blood-curdling screams, death. I am SUCH a wuss. It took me THREE DAYS to read this book. I kept putting it down because I was freaking out, not wanting to find out what happened next. Gah!

The secondary plot (at least, that's what I initially thought it was), was equally creepy. Women being abducted, flashbacks to the abductor's childhood trauma. In and out of the story it kept jumping, keeping me on my toes.

I liked Scream. The characters are all faced with the ultimate question: "If I die right now, what happens to me?" Mark especially, as he watches people drop like flies all around him, hears and sees the terror. It's weird and awesome.

If you're looking for something interesting and different, something for a beach read, this book is great. I don't, however, recommend you read it late into the night, or while you're on a camping trip. That would be bad. Unless you're into that kind of scare thing.

Until I write again ...

Flea