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Community comment are the opinions of contributing users. These comment do not represent the opinions of Port Moody Public Library.
Jun 01, 2016KateHillier rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Full disclosure: this book is a giant gimmick. The first page of the book is a plea for you to burn it. You are asked to burn the book many, many times as the novel goes on. You may begin to find this annoying. I didn't so much since I just sort of grew to expect it. Also this is Clive Barker, the man of insanely dark imagination, so there are plenty of gory happenings and gory threats. Now that we've got past that it was an okay read. It was gory more so than scary. Even the bits where Barker is clearly trying to get a rise out of you don't really manage it. The narrator of the book, a demon, tells the story of his coming of age in Hell and how he came to be on earth. It's not a linear story, the demon tells you it's more a collection of memories than anything else, and it really doesn't go anyway. Maybe it's the constant interruptions that throw you out of the story but it just doesn't quite reach that bar of awesome terror that it's reaching for. I did finish and I did have fun with it. I won't be burning the book but I don't think I'll be reading it again.