| Author: | Devin Cabrera |
| Genre(s): | ➡️ Horror ➡️ Paranormal |
| Series? | ❎ No |
| Goodreads Rating: | ⭐ 3.83 (459 ratings; 120 reviews) |
| Personal Rating: | ⭐ 3 / 5 Overall |
🛑 Spoiler Warning 🛑
I’ll be recounting events, characters, and themes so IT WILL BE FULL OF SPOILERS.
If you’d like to read a review with the spoilers hidden, kindly head to my Goodreads post. You don’t need an account to read it. 🙂
Description (Spoiler-Free)
Receiving a mysterious invitation to a new tourist attraction that promises to house real ghosts, horror writer Jonah Peterson embarks on a 3-day trip to Nightmare Island with his girlfriend and three friends. They were sure it was going to be like any other ‘haunted’ attraction filled with special effects and people wearing costumes until their guide started taking them on a tour to see the real deal. The island housed some of the most dangerous ghosts in the world and the only thing stopping them from killing the people on the island are the lights making up their invisible prison — the same light emanating from the spectators’ bracelets given to protect them during their stay. After a chilling two-day tour, they couldn’t wait to turn in for the night and get the hell out of there the next morning. But then… the lights on their bracelets disappeared.
Analysis
Right off the bat, the book was able to give off a modern horror vibe. Think Cabin in the Woods. It established this group of five adults living in the contemporary world and their relationships made sense. It transitioned to the secluded and gloomy feel of Nightmare Island really well from the moment they switched traveling by car to by boat. The transition to the ominous vibe of the island felt natural.
Unfortunately, the horror atmosphere was pretty inconsistent even when the opportunity was perfect to maximize fear. Let me elaborate.
One reason for this is the dialogue: it feels underdelivered. In the early pages, their tour guide was describing the island’s history. The island had an asylum and the surrounding buildings were the employees’ homes. Some doctor was conducting violent experiments on the patients and some of the employees were complicit in this. One day there was a storm that caused a power outage so the patients got out and turned on the staff and their families living on the island. This is a pretty great premise for horror but the tour guide’s delivery felt so flat. It just felt too ‘factual’ and so on the nose. I think he could’ve left out certain parts to make the delivery more grim, like the part where he said that the people couldn’t radio to the mainland. Adding the sentence just felt like the book was trying to justify to the reader why the medical staff couldn’t escape. The sentence about the residents not being prepared to evacuate was also unnecessary. Again, it was a sudden power outage. The residents not being prepared to leave a murderous rampage was pretty obvious. It’s just these unnecessary sentences sprinkled in it that are de-mystifying the situation. It doesn’t help that the main character, Jonah, experiences this history firsthand in the later chapter so this whole situation being summarized by the tour guide removed the thrill in those later chapters. The tour guide could’ve described the island’s history in shorter details and left some gaps that we’ll discover through Jonah’s eyes later on.
Second, unfortunately, the character reactions were also underbaked. How would you feel if you went through your whole life believing there are no ghosts — so much so that you and your friends chase horror attractions and make it a Halloween tradition — and then one day you see an actual ghost staring at your soul? Would it make you stop dead in your tracks and stammer? Would it make you feel a chill crawl from your arms and legs traveling through your spine and meeting at the back of your neck? Would it make you speechless? Because I definitely will. But the first reaction of the characters after seeing a ghost for the first time was just ‘too stunned to be paying attention to their tour guide.’ The first sentence any of them manages to say… after their tour guide recounts the horrible things this ghost can do while it stares at them… is “Are you sure that we are safe being in the same room as them?” Not “No way this is real,” or “Is this real?” or “How are you doing this?” or even as ridiculous as “Okay, this is a hologram, right? I’ll give it to you guys, it’s really good.” Nope, no disbelief or processing whatsoever… just that. It just feels underwhelming. The description of the ghosts was great but the reactions took the fear factor away.
Third, some of the terror scenes are ruined by trying to justify things to the reader. For example, there’s an elevator scene where it stopped after losing power, and instead of going to the third floor, it went directly to the fourth floor where they were forbidden to go. They were scared to go there because they kept hearing chains being dragged from the floor. I was already starting to feel scared but then this part came up:
When they had lost power, the elevator must have reset itself. It probably had a startup sequence where it would cycle through each floor as a test protocol to make sure everything was working again.
Again, it just felt like justifying the event to the reader at the wrong time. Maybe make someone else explain this before or after this event. There’s an opportunity right there the next day if the characters had logically reacted to this by bringing it up to the tour guide like any other reasonable person would. This whole elevator scene turned out to be a scary experience after all. Maybe say, “Hey you told us not to go there but the freaking elevator malfunctioned, and we thought we almost died. What the hell?”
Lastly, for an action-filled horror story, it surely didn’t highlight the screaming and whimpering well. Maybe it goes back to the flat dialogue issue? I’m not sure,. It just feels like this warrants its own paragraph. Sure the narration will tell you what they’re feeling, but I think the fear would be more real if I can see some all-caps and exclamation points here and there especially when it’s appropriate. A few “NOOOOO!” “LET GO!” “STOP!” would’ve been better in some of the scenes. I think the most reaction in a dialogue I remember was Jonah’s girlfriend saying “Ew! Ew! Ew!” when faced with a bunch of spiders… the least scary thing on this island.
Character-Building
Unfortunately, even though I can see the attempt to build characters, it didn’t hit the spot and I was not invested in any of them. Their dialogues sound way too similar to the other characters in the story except for Kevin. At least Kevin was consistently ‘bratty.’ The next distinguishable characters would be Jonah and Chuck, not even because they speak differently but just because of how frequently the narration keeps centering around Jonah and the repetitive mention of Chuck’s job.
Second, don’t expect any character depth from the girls at all. You can interchange their names and I wouldn’t even have even noticed. In fact, when they got separated, I forgot who who’s girlfriend was. They had no manner of speaking that can make them indistinguishable, and they were the only two living females in this story. It’s sad because there was potential there. Chuck’s girlfriend had this trauma with cemeteries because of something horrible and Jonah’s girlfriend had a fear of water. It could’ve been explored and executed better. I think this is because there’s a lack of creativity in terms of the characters’ physiological responses. For example, Audrey made this sarcastic joke saying ‘Sorry, I was busy drowning.” That was it, no mention of an eye roll or the sharpness in her voice, or some murderous look in her eyes. This pattern is all over
Lastly, they really lacked chemistry as a group. I didn’t feel like the other characters really, sincerely cared when any of them got hurt.
Writing Style or Editing
There are other writing choices here that make this less enjoyable.
First, there are backstories that are weirdly placed. When one of the characters, Annie, saw a ghost child she’s seeing for the second time around, there’s suddenly a paragraph about her having a miscarriage. This really ruined the ongoing horror scene that I was once again about to get creeped up by. I mean it’s a ghost child at the other end of the hallway and his neck just snapped to look at the character. That’s a horrifying image and it was a really good paragraph too. But the backstory just came out of nowhere. There’s not even a sign anywhere that her boyfriend, Chuck, was affected at all.
Second, some of the chapter endings would’ve ended better with the last few sentences removed. In chapter 45 where it has been perfectly made clear that Chuck was possessed, it could’ve ended with a proper shock at the sentence “With a simple flick of his wrist, Chuck dragged the blade across his own throat.” That’s shocking. But then, it goes a few more sentences just to explain that the ghost made Chuck lock the door and explain that he did this to make Jonah watch his friend die. Yeah, that was the scene. There was no need to explain what was happening and why, it has been pretty clear at this point that he was possessed by a murderous ghost. In chapter 59 where it’s already been established that they’re inside the Black Witch’s crypt, the terrorizing ender for the chapter should’ve just been “The ghosts weren’t looking at Jonah and the others. They were looking past them.” They had to add “What could scare something that was already dead?” There was no need for this question, we know what’s in there. The fact that the other ghosts were staring behind them was enough to let me know that she was there and make me panic.
Third, the narration is inconsistent about what perspective it is narrating. One paragraph would be a third-party objective where the actions are being described and the next paragraph would be a character’s inner thoughts and they’re really weirdly placed. In the chapter where the Black Witch was attacking them, the narrator had to explain her motivation to attack them by describing that she wants revenge for being imprisoned there. We didn’t really need that, that was pretty much given considering she was screaming the entire time they first encountered her and the tour guide explained why she was there. There’s also the chapter where there was an altercation between Jonah, Annie, and Miles for the boat and the perspective shifted to Miles strategizing in his head who to hit first. This wasn’t necessary, we could’ve just stayed at Annie and Miles’ perspective the entire team to maintain the flow that we, the readers, are in ‘survival mode’ alongside them. It didn’t really matter what Miles’s strategy was, we know why he’s trying to go after them. There are so many instances of this in the book.
🌟 Review (3/5)
This book has some good writing but it was overshadowed by so many flaws. The premise is excellent, some of the ghosts were well-described and had interesting backstories, and some of the scary scenes had great buildups. The events in the elevator alone created great tension cleverly leading to the plot twist halfway through. I like how their encounters began when the ghosts got free.
Unfortunately, without the character buildup, consistent narration, and proper placement of expositions, the story couldn’t land strong and the horror atmosphere wasn’t sustained. I still believe it has promise so I’m giving a fair 3 stars out of 5. The book has enough mystery left to do a sequel and maybe come back to do Nightmare Island justice.
The Stray Reader 
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