Monster - Finished!

So I was pretty sure it was going to suck. I mean let’s look at the writing pattern: Intense beginning, followed by about 6 dull chapters of information being delivered as uninterestingly as possible, followed by a slight rise in intensity for a couple chapters, then ending with jam-packed final chapters where everything comes together before your head stops spinning.

This review is a little late coming (I finished the book a couple days ago, and have already started my next) but when I went to write it I just didn’t know what to say. Chapters 11 through 20 did not make those first few chapters worth it; the information given was crucial to the plot line, although information doesn’t have to be monotonous. I still would have liked a bit more action or at least SOME suspense. For a good deal of it I wanted to yell out to Reed and his search crew to just get up and actually do something. Yet as I pushed onward in hopes of a turn of events I no longer wanted to read it just to see if the story got any better. Soon, I wanted to read it to see how Frank fit it all together to finally make sense! (Let me mark, that’s not a bad thing.)

Rebecca Shelton (known in the book as Beck because R’s bothered her stutter) was taken from her comfort zone into the woods on a camping trip by her husband Reed. He wanted her to start to see there’s more to life than just the confines of their home and her lifestyle that was becoming materialistic. However, when their camping trip was abruptly ended by a fierce creature their lives are turned upside down. Like I said in my first review, I was terrified reading the first chapters, being introduced to these giant, Bigfoot like monsters. Then Frank let the fear of the beasts die down and though I understand why he did it was hard for me to look past it. Without that fear in me I wasn’t able to understand that Beck was still afraid. I distinctly remember Frank writing out words like “For Beck, dread had become normal…” or “Beck’s fear of…” Now there’s nothing wrong with that except that was the only way I knew Rebecca was scared of her situation.

Monster by Frank Peretti was the second book I chose to conquer for my Reading Through Summer project. I’ll have you know I am extremely happy to say I’ve finished it, and though I do not regret or deny my first post, the book definitely got better. In the last few chapters my head was reeling with more clues, unforeseen twists and turns, and final answers to every question.