The body of a young girl is found mangled and murdered in the woods of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania, in the shadow of the abandoned Godfrey Steel mill. A manhunt ensues - though the authorities aren't sure if it's a man they should be looking for. Some suspect an escapee from the White Tower, a foreboding biotech facility owned by the Godfrey family - their personal fortune and the local economy having moved on from Pittsburgh steel - where, if rumours are true, biological experiments of the most unethical kind take place. Others turn to Peter Rumancek, a Gypsy trailer-trash kid who has told impressionable high school classmates that he's a werewolf. Or perhaps it's Roman, the son of the late JR Godfrey, who rules the adolescent social scene with the casual arrogance of a cold-blooded aristocrat, his superior status unquestioned despite his decidedly freakish sister, Shelley, whose monstrous medical conditions belie a sweet intelligence, and his otherworldly control freak of a mother, Olivia.At once a riveting mystery and a fascinating revelation of the grotesque and the darkness in us all, Hemlock Grove has the architecture and energy to become a classic in its own right - and Brian McGreevy the talent and ambition to enthrall us for years to come.
I got this book from the library after watching the Netflix series. The show started off really intriguing, but then lost its focus and started spinning its wheels by the middle. I was left with the impression that if only they'd not tried to stretch it out to 13 episodes, maybe they could have told a better story.
So as I am likely to do after watching something that's been adapted from a book, I read the book. It confirmed some of my thoughts about the show's pacing - the book covers mostly the same territory, but does so without the excessive backstory-telling that seemed to muddle up the middle of the TV series. I finished the book in less than two days and was surprised at how much better the pacing in the book was. Story-wise, there were little things slipped into the narration that made the plot make much more sense. On the other hand, there were some things that still had me scratching my head.
I liked the style of the writing. McGreevy can get a little wordy, but ultimately I thought he evoked a creepy and dreamy atmosphere that fit the story well. I can't really heap the praise on it that the reviews on the back cover do, but it was interesting and definitely a change of pace from most of the YA "horror" novels that are really romancey stories in disguise.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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4 August, 2013:
Finished reading
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4 August, 2013:
Reviewed