Island of Bones by Gaby Triana REVIEWED

Let us start with some reality.

The blog has gotten to the point where I am getting daily requests for review of books. Many of them are self-published and I am totally into that. I think, by and large, the future of horror fiction lie within the underground.

How cool would it be for me to find THAT one up-and-comer who is selling a billion books with movie deals and all that cool shit in a few years, when way-back-when my little ol' blog was one of the first places to give them a look!?

Very cool, indeed.

However, I started thinking about this while reading Finale, and cemented the thought yesterday when I got three review requests in the same day.

So... here it goes...

I love reading. I love reading horror, almost exclusively. I love sharing my thoughts on these books with the world. I've heard countless times now that I have inspired people to add books to their to-be-read pile. That is amazing. AMAZING. Literally, the only reason to do this is because A. I love the genre. B. I want the genre to sell, especially the smaller publishers and authors.

Frankly, the future of the genre depends on it.

But I am but one man. A man with a wonderful family. A man with three jobs. I also am having a great time with my new band, Anxious Wave. I've got pets and a home and a bunch of other obligations.

And I'm not whining! I love all of it.

But there's simply not enough time in the week to meet the needs of all of these things.

So, I've gotta start trimming fat from what I review. To read things I am not all that interested in is both sucking the joy of reading out of me AND maybe leading me to be a little less kind to a book than it needs me to be.

My discretion about what I review here forward will be much greater. I'm also considering recruitment of another blogger to keep this going.

Here nor there.

Let's review a book.

Island of Bones by Gaby Triana.

A totally serviceable little ghost yarn that moves fast enough and ends quickly. It was fine.

But it's just not my thing. Not quite horrific enough, ya know? My 13 year old stepdaughter would probably be pretty comfy here.

AND THAT'S OKAY!!!

There's tons of audience sub-pockets who prefer different things. I just am not in this one.

Gaby writes well. The pacing's good, the characters are okay...it's fine.

It's just not for me.

To put it in perspective, I read a 450 page R. Patrick Gates book in 4 days. This 200 pager took me over a week.

For my taste, it's a 2.5/5.

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