CR 16 -11( How Wretched Was My Valley)
Feb. 27th, 2024 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreadpiratekelThis Wretched Valley
Jenny Kiefer
As this is a horror novel I wanted to start with some content warnings. The book contains a lot of gore, blood, and some body horror. There are instances of animal death(s) and, well, people deaths. Lots of deaths! I did not check content warnings before reading (that is on me) and was surprised by the level of body horror.
This is the story of four adults (and one dog) who venture into the Kentucky woods to climb a previously undiscovered cliff face and conduct research about the area. Each has their reasons for heading into the woods. Dylan, a climber, wants to be the first to ascend the cliff and make more of a name for herself. She brings along her boyfriend Luke who will be providing support during the climb. They also bring along with them Luke’s dog Slade. Clay, who has organized this trip, is a graduate student, has discovered the undiscovered spot using technology and this is the driving force of his thesis. Lastly, Sylvia, another graduate student, joins the expedition to assist Clay and conduct research on the area's flora and fauna.
The book lets us know from the start that the bodies of Clay, Luke, and Sylvia have all been discovered, each in various states of Mysteriously Messed Up. However, Dylan's body remains missing, although there have been mysterious sightings of a figure in the woods. Having set the scene the narrative jumps back in time to March of 2019, showing how the characters ended up decomposing in the woods. There are also some pit stops between the 1700s to the early 90’s giving readers a glimpse of the Very Bad Things that have happened in this valley over the years.
I did appreciate that while this was a well-established Bad Place, what is haunting the area has kept up with technology. The power of the land can mess with cars, block out cell phone signals, and mess with GPS, even stall out a plane's motor temporarily. It also stretches out beyond its geographical area, evening messing with Dylan’s Instagram feed, this place has some juice! Beyond having power over technology the place also has a strange “pull” to it. I’m glad it is part of the narrative, because wow the characters are giving flashing, neon-red warning flags that this place is bad. There are lots of mentions of things looking like they are bleeding (a tree has sap-like blood and so on, really this book has a lot of talk of blood and blood-like substances) yet the group carries on.
The team all have their reasons to be there as noted above but to be honest those reasons don’t matter there is not a whole lot of heavy lifting being done characterisation-wise, the characters are there to react to the horror around them. This is fine because while there is a level of creepy from the start, things really escalate and then just do not stop. I got very very tense while reading this book and had to put it down shortly after starting because I knew bad things were going to happen. Then when things really kicked into gear I couldn’t put it down because I needed to power through the Bad Things happening.
Would it make a decent movie? I think so. I think it might fare better, personally when I’m reading horror as opposed to watching it I want to care about the characters more. Here they varied between barely a presence in the book, to kind of mean, to hints of more going on in their internal life but - in the end, they are there to be terrorized.
I will be keeping an eye out for this author in the future, I feel they have a good grasp of what works as scary in the horror genre, and am excited to see what they do next. Also, I know not to judge a book by its cover but I love this cover. It’s amazing.
Cannonball Read Blog Post Here
Jenny Kiefer
As this is a horror novel I wanted to start with some content warnings. The book contains a lot of gore, blood, and some body horror. There are instances of animal death(s) and, well, people deaths. Lots of deaths! I did not check content warnings before reading (that is on me) and was surprised by the level of body horror.
This is the story of four adults (and one dog) who venture into the Kentucky woods to climb a previously undiscovered cliff face and conduct research about the area. Each has their reasons for heading into the woods. Dylan, a climber, wants to be the first to ascend the cliff and make more of a name for herself. She brings along her boyfriend Luke who will be providing support during the climb. They also bring along with them Luke’s dog Slade. Clay, who has organized this trip, is a graduate student, has discovered the undiscovered spot using technology and this is the driving force of his thesis. Lastly, Sylvia, another graduate student, joins the expedition to assist Clay and conduct research on the area's flora and fauna.
The book lets us know from the start that the bodies of Clay, Luke, and Sylvia have all been discovered, each in various states of Mysteriously Messed Up. However, Dylan's body remains missing, although there have been mysterious sightings of a figure in the woods. Having set the scene the narrative jumps back in time to March of 2019, showing how the characters ended up decomposing in the woods. There are also some pit stops between the 1700s to the early 90’s giving readers a glimpse of the Very Bad Things that have happened in this valley over the years.
I did appreciate that while this was a well-established Bad Place, what is haunting the area has kept up with technology. The power of the land can mess with cars, block out cell phone signals, and mess with GPS, even stall out a plane's motor temporarily. It also stretches out beyond its geographical area, evening messing with Dylan’s Instagram feed, this place has some juice! Beyond having power over technology the place also has a strange “pull” to it. I’m glad it is part of the narrative, because wow the characters are giving flashing, neon-red warning flags that this place is bad. There are lots of mentions of things looking like they are bleeding (a tree has sap-like blood and so on, really this book has a lot of talk of blood and blood-like substances) yet the group carries on.
The team all have their reasons to be there as noted above but to be honest those reasons don’t matter there is not a whole lot of heavy lifting being done characterisation-wise, the characters are there to react to the horror around them. This is fine because while there is a level of creepy from the start, things really escalate and then just do not stop. I got very very tense while reading this book and had to put it down shortly after starting because I knew bad things were going to happen. Then when things really kicked into gear I couldn’t put it down because I needed to power through the Bad Things happening.
Would it make a decent movie? I think so. I think it might fare better, personally when I’m reading horror as opposed to watching it I want to care about the characters more. Here they varied between barely a presence in the book, to kind of mean, to hints of more going on in their internal life but - in the end, they are there to be terrorized.
I will be keeping an eye out for this author in the future, I feel they have a good grasp of what works as scary in the horror genre, and am excited to see what they do next. Also, I know not to judge a book by its cover but I love this cover. It’s amazing.
Cannonball Read Blog Post Here
