My thanks to Booktasters and the author Dimas Rio in sending me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
Who’s There? is a collection of short hoMy thanks to Booktasters and the author Dimas Rio in sending me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
Who’s There? is a collection of short horror stories written by Indonesian author Dimas Rio. Horror as a genre is not really my thing, I have not read much of it at all, except for some fantasy with some horror elements. The short stories here all varied in length, some were really just a few pages while others went on for a bit longer. They were all enjoyable in their own right, although some definitely stood out to me more than others, where I found them to be more engaging, while I didn’t get as invested in others.
I certainly found each individual story to be interesting and unique, there all had some enticing element to them, it was just that some of the premises gripped me more, while I failed to care for some of the stories. Now, I also haven’t read many short stories or anthologies, so I’m probably not the best person to be reviewing this - just putting that out there.
In terms of characters, I certainly found the ones in the longer stories to have been better fleshed out and more interesting to read in general. They just had a lot more depth to them - in fact a surprising amount for the little time the author had to develop them, and so I really liked that. There were certainly some characters that I found more engaging than others, I think that is less of a critique on the author and rather due to personal taste when naturally in an anthology, I’ll prefer certain stories and characters over others.
I honestly really liked the horror elements. Now, just to reiterate, I haven’t really read horror, so in that sense, I wasn’t sure if this was meant to be necessarily scary? Because I wasn’t really scared, some parts creeped me out and was incredibly weird, but I was never at my wits end. It didn’t seem to be that much scarier than a lot of the fantasy that I’ve read that has some more spooky elements. Like this point doesn’t really factor nor effect my rating as I can’t really gauge what the author was going for. However, I did get the sense that some bits certainly weren’t meant to seem somewhat scary, or at least be creepy and to that degree, I think the majority of the stories achieved that and it managed to grip me enough to want to keep reading.
In regard to the writing style, right at the beginning, I thought that it was quite pretentious and unnecessary to how the author described things, it was overdone, and a lot felt like filler. I think as I gradually eased into this book, I noticed it a lot less which I was grateful for, although I will say that I don’t think that this book’s writing style is for everyone. I actually think that this is a translated work, where it would make sense as to why the prose is like it is in this book.
Overall, I thought that this was good, highly enjoyable and the author is a decent writer. 7.5/10...more
Wow that was weird, like really, really weird. Certainly not something I would normally read and well, there were a lot of messed up stuff in here thaWow that was weird, like really, really weird. Certainly not something I would normally read and well, there were a lot of messed up stuff in here that while made it interesting, also creeped me out. Unfortunately, I’m not good at listing trigger warnings, I apologise that, but I’m sure ya’ll can find list online for those who have yet to read this book and thinking to, because there’s sexual violence, what I would consider borderline rape, mentions cannibalism, a fair bit of death, gore and drug use, so like be warned? Look, I think for most people it won’t be that bad, I dealt with it fine, I think partly it was because I do largely read YA and stuff so you know, I’m reading stuff I normally wouldn’t.
I did enjoy this a fair bit, I didn’t love it, so hence the four stars, but I did think it was largely very good. I think what I would have liked is for the first half to have been a bit more interesting, as compared to the second half which had a lot more action to it, feel somewhat flat. Like things were cruising along, and there were definitely some mysterious elements to it, but in a sense I would have liked more. See, while it was good with all the big reveals in the second half, I do think it would have benefitted with some more hints in the first half to better incentivise the reader to keep going. So, in that sense, I would have liked the plot to have been a bit more interesting. That being said, all the stuff that occurs in the second half largely makes up for that, where it became a lot more fascinating to read about, where the supernatural parts properly came in and I really digged that.
The prose was largely fine, although there were occasions where I thought that it was a little awkward and almost felt juvenile, perhaps it could have done with a little more editing? It certainly wasn’t bad by any means and fitted the overall tone of the story quite well.
I liked the main character in this, I thought that Noemi was interesting and well written. I also liked her development throughout this book, even if I did think there could have been greater change. The entire Doyle family was incredibly intriguing to me. There were a highly mysterious bunch who humoured me. Like, they gave me bad vibes from the start, but I did not expect for this novel to end the way it did. Like Francis I tolerated, Vergil and Howard just disgusted me, and Florence was just annoying. I actually think the way the author wrote these hugely different personalities was done super well and really made me despise them, so in that end, the author accomplished her goal.
The overall concept in this novel was really interesting and I really enjoyed all the more fantastical elements about it a lot. It added a whole lot of drama and made it so much more engaging to read in my view. I’ve also like never seen this sort of stuff done before, or at least handled as well as it was, which was great for me to read, as it was quite the experience.
Overall, I thought this was really well written and am certainly inclined to check out more book by this author in the future! 8/10...more
Hmm, so, this retelling was really interesting and there were many aspects and directions that the author took the narrative in that I really enjoyed.Hmm, so, this retelling was really interesting and there were many aspects and directions that the author took the narrative in that I really enjoyed. Overall, I feel... mixed about this book. For those who are unaware, this is a retelling of the classic Frankenstein from the perspective of Elizabeth, who I suppose is the ‘love interest’ figure in the original novel. I read this just after my first read of Frankenstein, which made it an interesting experience as so much of this book is based directly off the events of Frankenstein and in many regards, follows that book step by step.
I really enjoyed the friendships that the author created, and I really liked the chemistry between Elizabeth, Justine and Mary. Now, there were aspects that if you are familiar with the classic, there are some obvious points in where the plot is headed in regard to these characters. Victor Frankenstein is portrayed as these very bad and evil figure, as he rightfully should for all the problems in both this retelling and the original classic were all his fault. The relationship is extremely unhealthy and toxic with Elizabeth essentially doing anything to please Victor and it was purposely portrayed this way and it was interesting.
One part that lacked for me was really the entire first half, as nothing of note really happened at all and everything just sort of trudged along really slowly. There wasn’t a lot of real character development at all and there were also many flashback scenes that sort of establishes the past, but also didn’t really add too much to the story except to show how evil Victor is. It definitely picked up towards the second half, especially the last 30% or so, where I did like the direction the story took in and the way how these characters adapted and changed.
I can’t really decide if many of the directions the author took with this book would be considered ‘smart’ or rather just the obvious way to go. There weren’t too many things that were particularly surprisingly, and some things were rounded up pretty neatly, despite the somewhat ambiguous ending, which I did actually like. I do suppose that since this is directly based off the original instead of a new novel with new characters that acts as a loose retelling, there are limitations to what the author could do. What I mean is that everything did have to make sense in terms of the context with the original text.
It’s actually a fairly short book, though in page count it is longer than Frankenstein, though that was much denser than this novel was, as it is YA. There weren’t too many elements that would be too scary, I wouldn’t think. Yes, there are some pretty horrific things, but it doesn’t go into that much detail. I suppose that be wary, but as someone that doesn’t read horror, it really wasn’t worse than other things I’ve read. There are some elements that are certainly darker than your typical YA contemporary for example, but I still think it fits just fine with YA boundaries.
I read this with the Between the Pages bookclub for our October book of the month and for the most part, I liked it, though I wasn’t amazed by it either. 6/10...more
Well, this was not what I expected from this book. I suppose that since this is there view of Frankenstein being this scary horror novel about this moWell, this was not what I expected from this book. I suppose that since this is there view of Frankenstein being this scary horror novel about this monster that this person creates, and that was the view I had going into this novel. It actually ended up being pretty chill and calm, and certainly there were, I suppose creepy or weird moments, though there wasn’t anything that was truly horrifying in my opinion. If there wasn’t a monster in this novel, from my limited experience in classics, it easily could have just been like a novel by Austen or the Brontë’s in a sense that it deals with drama and family and that sort of stuff.
Still, despite that, I still ended up enjoying it, though not for the reasons that it was a horror story(to be fair, my experience with horror is even less than that of classics as I feel that’s it not really my genre but I thought that I would try this as it is October and everyone is reading these sort of scary novels).
I generally always quite like the writing style in classics, partly because the English language has evolved in some aspects in the past several hundred years and it evokes a really different sense of style. Now, reading historical fiction, the writing itself may still feel fresh and modern, although I find in reading classics, often just because of word choices, it really is quite different. Some words like hitherto are constantly used and it’s interesting to me as words like that have seen quite a significant decline in use. I mean, no one goes around saying hitherto anymore.
While it was not scary, I did find some elements to be quite sad and tragic, though perhaps not emotionally so. I’m not going to delve into spoilers, but from all perspectives, there is a lot of pain and hurt here. I found that it was interesting that the author in fact spent a significant portion providing the reader with the monster’s point of view and to experience what someone who is so fundamentally different to the rest of society feels and experiences. Naturally, even now, there is a lot of prejudice towards many of groups people, particularly LGBTQIA+, BIPOC and so forth, so you can imagine at people’s reactions when a figure literally described as a ‘fiend’ rocks up. In some sense, and this may sound weird, but in some ways, I did sympathise with the monster at times, partly because of the way that it is viewed by society and at how it is treated.
I also had heard that the monster is not called Frankenstein, but I forgot going into this novel, but I don’t think the monster is actually names. It is vividly described as this atrocious looking thing, but we aren’t provided with a name. Frankenstein is actually the last name of the protagonist, Victor and I feel that even though it probably wasn’t meant to be an overly scary sounding name, but over time, we apply it to the terrible creature instead as it is the title of the book.
It’s formatted in a fairly interesting way, with the start and end consisting entirely of letters from a character and his experience with Victor, with the main body of the work following Victor, which was interesting. I was initially slightly confused at the beginning, yet by the end things made sense in the way it was told and the purpose of the start of the novel.
So overall, I actually enjoyed this a fair bit, though not for its horror elements, which were lacking though I don’t exactly blame the book for it, but rather what I was led into believing the book was about. 7.5/10...more
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