Review copy provided by the publisher—Tor.com—in exchange for an honest review.

The Twilight Pariah by Jeffrey Ford
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Twilight Pariah by Jeffrey Ford has an interesting premise and ideas but unfortunately they were quite poorly executed.

In their last college vacation, Maggie, Russell, and Henry wanted to get drunk and play archaeologist in a mansion located in the woods outside of town. During their excavation, the found a disturbing skeleton of a horned child which lead to their lives becoming a living hell wherever they go. Sounds quite good right? But in my opinion, the writing didn’t deliver any of the suspense and creepiness that books in the horror genre delivers.

The Twilight Pariah supposedly belongs in the horror genre but nothing in the book made me feel scared, or feel anything at all really. The main problem that I encountered with the book is how emotionless every aspect of the book felt. The characters didn’t have any personalities imbued into them other than they loved getting drunk and hammered at any free time given. The writing style also felt super choppy, nothing were ever elaborated; every single moment written in the book felt just like a simple text with no impact or meaning. Admittedly though, I must say that despite every cons I had on the book, I was not bored with reading it.

Overall, other than the interesting premise and ideas, sadly I have to say that I didn’t enjoy reading The Twilight Pariah and in my opinion, it didn’t reach the full potential that the novella had. Please do remember that this is just my opinion and experience, there’s a chance that you’ll have a better time with it than me.

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