The Haunted Forest Tour by Jeff Strand
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Welcome to Disneyland!

This novel is either bizarro fiction, a novel written on a methamphetamine nightmare, or it's a flip off for all the horror fans who've enjoyed too much of a good thing, namely blood, gore, and more blood.

The trick is to have us first CARE for the victims or possible heroes first. Failing that, we need to have a really compelling reason to hate them and want to see them die horrible, nasty, brutish deaths... EVENTUALLY.

In this case, we're given no foreplay.

It's just a carnival sideshow with super-silly demon antics with the most tired sacrifice plot ever devised, a million monsters in a magical forest, and cartoonish (if blood-soaked military action had a cartoon industry) fight scenes.

The reactions of the characters in this book are less than satisfying. What should have come across as sarcastic cardboard cut-outs actually felt less like we were supposed to laugh WITH them and felt more like the novel was laughing AT us.

*sigh*

Not happy. The novel itself was written competently enough if you leave out the purpose of empathizing with anyone... but overall, the effect was depressing.

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