Monster - Chapter Eleven

Finally! Some action and suspense has at last taken place somewhere in this book! Frank Peretti did an excellent job of scaring the crap out of me in his first couple of chapters, but up until now things have been pretty dead. I’ll openly admit that I’m afraid of the dark it’s a pretty common fear, in chapter two Frank played off of that perfectly. For most of us, we just muster up the courage and look out into the darkness and our fears turn back into nonsense. This was not the case for Reed and Beck Shelton. When they mustered the courage, stood face to face with darkness, all of their worst fears came to life. Sounds and images were more than just projections of their imagination. Myths and stories of the woods became their reality and Beck caught the brunt of it. However, then chapter two ended, I turned the page, and began trudging through chapters three through nine.

Okay, so Beck is off with monstrous creatures that could, at any moment, wring her neck and end her life in seconds. My head knows this, but my horror-fanatic and writer senses are reassuring me that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Why would the one person who’s keeping the storyline going die before the middle of the book?? If Beck dies, what’s the point of Reed’s search?? If Beck dies, Reed’s search becomes pointless, and now what’s the point of the last three fourths of the book??

These chapters were not entirely useless; the reader does gain information along the way about each of the characters. We begin to see Reed take control of the situation, we learn why Cap was fired, and we watch as Beck learns just how much she can handle. We even learn about the monsters, they start to take shape in our minds, and little by little we learn how they came to be. But isn’t this supposed to be scary?? Or at least somewhat suspenseful?? The second Frank Peretti compared the monsters to a dysfunctional family; they lost all fierce qualities in my head. Frank had to tell me Beck was still scared, I couldn’t sense it or pick it up from his writing anymore. Suddenly, I pictured stories like Mighty Joe Young or even King Kong, stories of overgrown, misunderstood beasts acting out because of human failure. Frank’s beasts suddenly became a lot less scary.

I’m not trying to say it was terrible writing or that Frank Peretti should be shunned from the world of published authors just in my opinion it could use a bit more of the scare factor. A lot more.

But here I go on to chapter twelve hoping to be scared, shocked, and satisfied.