I received an advanced copy from Netgalley in return for an honest review on my blog and Netgalley.
Hey guys! Welcome back to my blog, today I’m going to be reviewing The Crack of Evil by Taylor Macneill, published on 26th September 2018 by BooksGoSocial.
Overall rating… 1 out of 5 stars.
I didn’t really know what to think of this book, I thought for a very long time about what rating to give this book, as I felt like I was one of the very few people who didn’t enjoy it.
So, I did enjoy the various angles that this book took, playing on the fears of each of our characters. The fears were common but I feel this played to the author’s strength as it allowed her to delve deep into them and genuinely frighten people with her writing.
I will also say that the twists and turns of the story make you want to keep reading, it’s like a cliffhanger at the end of each chapter.
But that’s where my enjoyment ends.
I felt that the book didn’t really offer much in the way of a storyline, we weren’t introduced to the 4 key characters at the start of the book they were just whacking out an ouija board within the first 3 pages… This fast-paced tone did not let up for the entire book.
I read the whole book and was still confused at the end as to what the actual story was, there didn’t seem to be a clear direction.
Then the writing itself, some of the book I felt was really well written, it had so much depth to it, you felt like you were experiencing these “nightmares” alongside our characters. But, other points I felt like the dialogue was being written by a child.
My main issue with this book is the borrowed ideas that are so thinly veiled they might as well just quote the films or books or legends…
For instance, they were dying in their dreams (A Nightmare on Elm Street), then we had Bloody Mary (literally a legend) and the walls of their apartment were bleeding (howdy Amityville Horror). Or, we had the plague (which actually happened) and radiation poisoning following a nuclear fallout (one of the biggest fears of our current world).
It felt like the author didn’t really try to make these any different or put their own spin on things, it was lifted straight from something else and straight into this book.
I really did not think this book had a storyline, used original ideas or even tried to put their own spin on borrowed ideas and it really showed. Whilst I enjoyed the twists and turns and the playing on genuine fears at various points throughout the book I did find it poorly written.
I feel like I’m in the minority of disliking this book, but I can’t help it! If you’ve read it, let me know what you thought!
Em xxx
What Em's Reading 