Rating: 
Summary: Big Let Down
Review: Thank goodness I bought this used. This book reminded me of a lot of horror movies...great beginning, great premise....BIG LET DOWN in an Anne Rice "Taltos" way. Straub's other books are much more compelling and creepy.
Rating: 
Summary: Poe Meets H. P. Lovecraft, By Way Of The Addams Family
Review: The Peter Straub acid test - you'll either love it, or hate it.Ned Dunstan comes from a very peculiar family. Some of them see things that haven't yet happened. Others can teleport. Or, apparently, be in more than one place at a time. Their offspring are - well, sometimes not quite right. Occasionally they have to be buried out in the Back Forty. Ned has been haunted by an "Other" since his childhood, some shadowy figure who seeks him and those around him out to do grievous harm. And he seems to have a twin, who his mother never told him about...or does he? Along with Ghost Story, this is Straub's best-written and most carefully plotted book. Also like Ghost Story, it requires tremendous patience to read. Straub writes like a Chinese puzzle box, and in highly convoluted form, presenting bits and pieces of his story in altered time frames and from different perspectives. His plot is half Poe's "William Wilson," half Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror." It is more sci-fi or fantasy than true horror, and in fact the award it won was the World Fantasy Award, which is most appropriate. It's tricky and clever, but really satisfies in the end if you simply pay attention. Won't be everyone's cup of tea, but this description should help you decide whether or not it will be yours.
Rating: 
Summary: Not so good, not so bad...
Review: This was my first Peter Straub novel, and although I liked the basic plot of the story and almost all the characters, there were times I was reading, and Straub just seemed to go on about something or other that was supposed to tie into the book. If it weren't for the actual plot, I would've quit before it got good. It did end kind of crummy, for my liking. But, overall if you are a fan of Straub, read this. If not, you aren't missing anything.
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