When I first saw this book, I was so happy! Everything about it just screamed how perfect a book it is for me – from the eerie front cover, to the fantastically creepy blurb! I fell in love with the book before I even read it – and yeah, sort of before I even owned a copy.
I first came across this book on Ashleigh’s blog: A Frolic Through Fiction, where she posted a great review on this book.
I love horror films, as you might have heard me say – my favourites include The Conjuring, Insidious, The Woman In Black – I just love a good horror. But I haven’t actually read that many horror books. I’ve recently acquired a few though and The Creeper Man was amongst them. And I just couldn’t wait to read it.
Okay, so I didn’t realize that the book was formatted so uniquely – it is beautifully split into different quirky entries which include poems, notes, and these little paragraphs which have certain words highlighted in bold to spell a different sentence. So regarding how to book is put together, it is ingenious really, how everything fits to tell a story. The quality of the actual writing, I found wasn’t the best – I found that it relied a little too much on the use of big capitalised words to make a big statement, rather than being able to conjure tension and drama from description. Also, instead of fitting thoughts into the flow of the story, they were usually just stuck in a square bracket. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing – it might really appeal to some people, however, I just found that things like this effected the flow of the story, just a tiny bit.
Silla and her little sister, Nori, have escaped their abusive father and come to live with her Aunt Cathy (who is slightly mad) in her big crimson-red mansion in the middle of the woods. Right from the off, it reminded me of a couple of things:
- Okay, so the trees are getting closer! This reminded me of Macbeth a little; “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Wood shall come against him.” I thought it was a really exciting idea to have the trees slowly closing in, so eerie and intriguing!
- The Creeper man sort of reminded me of the concept of the monster in A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness – again, both are great ideas.
- And finally the setting – it reminded me of a film I watched a couple of months ago called Crimson Peak. I don’t really know why, it just did, haha!
Anyway, everything’s all fine – Silla and Nori are happy to live with Aunt Cath in her mansion, even if she is slightly deluded, and even if the house is a bit disgusting sometimes!
But lingering over them is a weird story that their Aunt tells them; about a man in the woods who will never let them leave… Also, interwoven into Silla’s version of events is a tale from her Aunt’s childhood. There’s a lot going on!
So it’s all very fast-paced and interesting! The ending wasn’t anything I’d considered, to be honest, but it was satisfying, to say the least. So we’ve got a really promising start and an exciting ending – but the bit in the middle wasn’t the most enjoyable for me because not that much happened to be honest. And yeah, like I said in the title of the post – I just wasn’t creeped out enough!!
However, I enjoyed the book – it was unusual and gripping, and I’m glad I read it. I’d say it deserves four stars, just because I think it was lacking a little in some elements. But it was really good!
Hope you enjoyed my review!
- Have you read The Creeper Man?
- Or have you read anything else by Dawn Kurtagich?
- Is it something you’d like to read?
Poppy's Best of Books 