Book Review - Afraid

Afraid by Jack Kilborn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So, I had pretty mixed feelings about this book. I started listening to the audiobook a few months ago, and after the first audiodisk I returned it to the library. It was just so violent, and so gross, and so off-putting that I couldn't keep going.

But there were a couple of characters that I was worried about. In one way, I didn't want to finish the book because I was pretty sure the icky and gross things would be the end of them. But I finally had to go back. I got the ebook and finally finished it. A little at a time.

Afraid takes place in small-town Wisconsin, where a helicopter crash has let loose a band of psychopathic, sadistic, nutjob murderers who seem determined to rip every citizen limb from limb. This book is not for the faint of heart. There's a lot of blood and gore, and I skipped large sections of paragraphs of it because it was too much, even for me, the intrepid Stephen King and Dean Koontz fan. There's just too much of it, in my opinion, so even though this book and it's characters were so incredibly engaging that I had to go back to it, I could only rate it three stars.

I mean, taken at face value, this is trashy fiction. But I do like trashy fiction; even trashy fiction is better for entertainment than trashy tv, and we all have our vices. But the characters, for trashy fiction, are actually extremely well written, and one important twist in the book was one that even an avid mytery reader like me - who usually guesses all the twists way in advance - didn't see coming. Though I did guess one of the other "big twists" early on, so there's that. Still, this is worth a read if you either don't mind icky violence or are able to skip it without getting too squicked out. Especially if you like adorable animals like chirpy monkeys and cute beagles named Woof who turn out to be big heroes.

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