layawaydragon
Written on Mar 12, 2016
I wouldn’t call it dystopian as a genre, though it’s definitely not pleasant. I’d class it as apocalyptic—with paranormal aspects and a twist. It’s setup and flows like a psychological mystery and reads likes literary fiction. I also wouldn’t class it as horror. It’s has some violent, unsettling moments but this isn’t about running from zombie children.
We explore and deal with the children as much as possible given their infliction, there just isn’t that much to do with them as they are.
I really liked Lock’s perspective and found him to be such a great character. He is stereotypically distant and has difficultly in social situations. But he does have emotions, he feels and expresses them differently.
The writing is superb as well. It was entertaining and kept me hooked throughout the quick read. It was an interesting and unique twist for how The Uninvited manifest to wreck shit.
However, I really hated the ending. So we can piece together who The Uninvited are, why they are here and what they are doing. I can’t really expect the history of the world for the spoon-fed version.
It didn’t feel like a conclusion. The book just stopped. Lock’s story isn’t over. Freddy’s story isn’t over. What happens to the children, do they stay that way? And we have no idea WTF is going to happen next in the world.
Lock’s had his guesses earlier but that doesn’t mean he’s right. He certainly didn’t get everything right during the story. Others have called this a “French ending”, but as I don’t have much exposure I can’t say if that’s accurate. Though it does met the stereotype of that and Literary fiction. It wasn’t satisfying. I was disappointed and unfulfilled.
It wasn’t thought provoking in the traditional sense, unless you count “Gods-fucking-damnit, what next?!?!” I wasn’t contemplating how the world got there and blah, blah, blah. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s fucking obvious. And there’s no way this scenario (with the children at least) is going to play out IRL, which just leaves wondering how to change our world now. I don’t know about ya’ll but that’s nothing new to me. That line of thinking just makes me feel depressed and impotent.
