Great Fast paced book

If you enjoy a book that makes you think this is for you. loved it

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An excellent tale of the supernatural

I had read the book but enjoyed it enough to want an audible copy as well. The narrator did a great job bringing the book & its characters to life. and I can't wait to see the movie or to read/listen to the next book in the series

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1 person found this helpful

wow this audio is just wow

i couldnt stop listening to it. it was very inserting i couldnt stop listening to it at all
five stars for sure

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1 person found this helpful

Great Narration, Fair Story, Overwrought Prose

Pros: The narrator of this book does a very good job of doing different voices to help keep track of the characters in dialogue, and he also emotes the story quite well. The behavior of the animals on the island is truly unsettling. The author has a good idea for the containment that makes Tom stay on the island instead of fleeing for his life and sanity.

Cons: Oh, the prose is SO PURPLE. I felt like it just got worse as the book went on. "His beard hugged his chin like a drowning man clinging to a rock." "The door opened on its rusted hinges with a sound like a dying animal." "Broken floorboards hung like sheets of hair on an ancient hag." "The lighthouse beam swept across the water like a sword cutting through human flesh." The fanciful similes were supposed to add spookiness to the story, but instead they just made me roll my eyes. The book didn't need all of that. Tom is a likeable character with a cute cat, so I was already on his side. The behavior of the rats, gulls, and hogs on the island is discomfiting, and the elderly homeless man who spouts prophecies was a good enough addition. The narrator did his best with the material, but the descriptions were just overwrought.

Also, and this isn't a spoiler because it's explained in the very first chapter, the reason the ghosts are trapped on the island is because they didn't get a Christian burial. OK, I'll suspend my disbelief, but it's a problem that's unrelatable to a nonreligious person. Is the Christian god confined to churchyards? Can he not just take a stroll over to the island, bat away the demonic entity that's guarding the ghosts, and free all the spirits of young men who died with little crosses and bibles tucked into their jacket pockets? Can't even give Tom some instructions or protection for the task? No? It just feels like a plot hole in a story that relies heavily on Christian ideas.

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