Title: The Uninvited
Author: Liz Jensen
Pages: 320
Publishing Date: January 8th, 2013
Publishing Date: January 8th, 2013
Audience: Adult
Source: Library (Randi & Becky)
Rating: 2 I'd give this book an awkward hug, but I don't trust it not to stab me (Becky)
3 I'd friend this book on Facebook, but only so I could monitor its movements and stay far, far away (Randi)
3 I'd friend this book on Facebook, but only so I could monitor its movements and stay far, far away (Randi)
Goodreads Summary:A seven-year-old girl puts a nail gun to her grandmother's neck and fires. An isolated incident, say the experts. The experts are wrong. Across the world, children are killing their families. Is violence contagious? As chilling murders by children grip the country, anthropologist Hesketh Lock has his own mystery to solve: a bizarre scandal in the Taiwan timber industry.
Hesketh has never been good at relationships: Asperger's Syndrome has seen to that. But he does have a talent for spotting behavioral patterns and an outsider's fascination with group dynamics. Nothing obvious connects Hesketh's Asian case with the atrocities back home. Or with the increasingly odd behavior of his beloved stepson, Freddy. But when Hesketh's Taiwan contact dies shockingly and more acts of sabotage and child violence sweep the globe, he is forced to acknowledge possibilities that defy the rational principles on which he has staked his life, his career, and, most devastatingly of all, his role as a father.
Our Thoughts
Becky in Black
Randi in Red
I found this book unexpectedly boring. The writing was technically good, but nothing about it hooked me. Agree! I kept waiting and waiting to care about somebody, anybody. And it never happened.... The closest I came was Freddy K. He was kind of adorable and I liked his relationship with Hesketh, our narrator. I kind of thought Hesketh was a little crazy when it came to his "protection" of Freddy K. I was constantly thinking things like, "He's gonna kill you! Get outta there!" Hesketh has Aspergers Syndrom, which partially explains why I felt so distant from everyone and everything in the book. He seemed most excited about Freddy, origami, and color shades. Showing the story from his viewpoint sucked the horror and suspense out of even the creepiest of events. That's a good point; I hadn't thought about that, but I do agree. Horrific things were happening, but it was difficult to relate to Hesketh's actions, so I didn't feel very scared or horrified.
The first 150 pages of the story are incredibly slow, and while bad things are happening occasionally, it is mostly just us learning about Hesketh. I found him somewhat unlikable due to his attitude towards sex and uninteresting due to him being extremely uninteresting lol. Awww, poor Hesketh! I usually enjoy reading about characters with Aspergers Syndrome (ever since I read Jodi Picoult's House Rules - which I loved), but...it felt like pulling teeth to get me to pick this book back up every day.
I think what made me the most upset was when I soldiered through all the way to the very end of the story (which involved lots of half-comprehended speed reading through the boring parts) and I still had no idea what was happening. N0 idea, people. Nothing. We're supposed to think that there is some kind of science fiction time warp where the children are simultaneously from the future and the present and are adapting to live in the barren wasteland that will be earth. That's as far as I got. Yeah, I think the explanation (and the fact that we get it from Hesketh's view, so it's couched in very intellectual terms) turned me off the most. I love post-apocalyptic stories because I think they truly get to the core of what it means to be human; however, this one just didn't do it for me. Overall, I'll probably put this on my horror display at the library, but it will go nowhere near my favorites shelf.
Becky in Black
Randi in Red
I found this book unexpectedly boring. The writing was technically good, but nothing about it hooked me. Agree! I kept waiting and waiting to care about somebody, anybody. And it never happened.... The closest I came was Freddy K. He was kind of adorable and I liked his relationship with Hesketh, our narrator. I kind of thought Hesketh was a little crazy when it came to his "protection" of Freddy K. I was constantly thinking things like, "He's gonna kill you! Get outta there!" Hesketh has Aspergers Syndrom, which partially explains why I felt so distant from everyone and everything in the book. He seemed most excited about Freddy, origami, and color shades. Showing the story from his viewpoint sucked the horror and suspense out of even the creepiest of events. That's a good point; I hadn't thought about that, but I do agree. Horrific things were happening, but it was difficult to relate to Hesketh's actions, so I didn't feel very scared or horrified.
The first 150 pages of the story are incredibly slow, and while bad things are happening occasionally, it is mostly just us learning about Hesketh. I found him somewhat unlikable due to his attitude towards sex and uninteresting due to him being extremely uninteresting lol. Awww, poor Hesketh! I usually enjoy reading about characters with Aspergers Syndrome (ever since I read Jodi Picoult's House Rules - which I loved), but...it felt like pulling teeth to get me to pick this book back up every day.
I think what made me the most upset was when I soldiered through all the way to the very end of the story (which involved lots of half-comprehended speed reading through the boring parts) and I still had no idea what was happening. N0 idea, people. Nothing. We're supposed to think that there is some kind of science fiction time warp where the children are simultaneously from the future and the present and are adapting to live in the barren wasteland that will be earth. That's as far as I got. Yeah, I think the explanation (and the fact that we get it from Hesketh's view, so it's couched in very intellectual terms) turned me off the most. I love post-apocalyptic stories because I think they truly get to the core of what it means to be human; however, this one just didn't do it for me. Overall, I'll probably put this on my horror display at the library, but it will go nowhere near my favorites shelf.
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