Hemlock Grove

I am so confused by this book. Is so dark and heavy worded that I had to squint my eyes to really understand what the he'll was going on! seriously is not boring but I guess my level of English is inferior for this book. I only read it because I wanted to know more about the story that the show wouldn't let me know, I'm going to read a wikia if there's one.

What the fuck was that shit ass garbage?
slurs galore, extremely sexist, incest galore, roman likes cutting himself because hes edgy. incredible. i cant believe people like this shit
not to mention is writing is so shit ass hot dog water bad i cant fucking tell what is happening most of the time. i had to reread paragraphs often just because of that fuck ass writing. makes me feel better about my own writing
what a fucking gross book for no reason bro
In acknowledgements the author thanks God
My brother in christ god does not like this either

I listened to this as an audiobook and enjoyed it tremendously. I also enjoyed the Netflix series. I'm not sure what effect watching the Netflix series has on understanding the book. I, obviously, had the actors in my mind as I listened to the book and the book followed the first season of the series.

The story opens with Peter Rumancek dealing with acclimating to the quiet town of Hemlock Grove. Peter is a gypsy. His uncle was a werewolf from the old country. Peter is a werewolf, too. There is a death of a girl by some kind of beast. Naturally, attention turns to the hirsute newcomer. Peter befriends the weird son of the local aristocracy, Roman Godfrey. Roman has the strange power to compel people to do his bidding and an unhealthy fascination with blood. Peter recognizes him as an “upyre,” which I thought was a totally made up word until I looked it up and, yes, it does mean vampire in a Slavic language.

Did I mention, Roman's 7 foot, silent, but very intelligent and soulful sister? She died but was brought back to life by the strange and precise scientist working in the Godfrey Foundation's tall tower-like research facility.

So, you have werewolves, vampires and even Frankenstein and his monster.

The plot works nicely as Roman and Peter are friends, then rivals, then friends, and other characters come and go and make contributions to the story, al the while the body count rises. The mystery is eventually resolved logically and dramatically.

I particularly enjoyed the book because of the writing. Peter's internal monologue was at time's honest and funny. Here's an example:

“Peter and Letha were eating lunch in the cafeteria and he felt it coming. He detected a kind of nervous energy in her, a distinctively female tension that when released would be no good for anyone. He felt it in his Swadisthana. A week had gone by. Roman was still under and Peter had made no headway in the investigation. He had done nothing at all; he knew the fight that was coming but did not know what new and inspired ways things could get fucked if he continued trying to get around it. For now the only thing was to take things as they came and avoid getting into any more grief-inducing scenarios. For now he was totally set on those. But the way Letha was worrying her yogurt it was clear that whatever was on her mind would soon be on his.

“Wow, do your earrings match your purse?” said Peter. As a rule he kept observations about fashion decisions women had made in reserve for diversionary purposes.

“I want you to come to dinner at my house,” she said.

Peter was quiet.

“It would be kind of a big deal for them,” she said. “It ... would be kind of a big deal for me.” Peter told his mind's eye to picture the way the sun falls like honey on the grass in autumn and a low stream passing over round stones and the first angel's-hair sliver of the new moon. Make “this” a lot easier. So we're a “this” now. As if that wasn't the exact kind of talk that led to boyfriend and commitment and other words he was allergic to. Girls. The second you set up a perfectly reasonable boundary is the second they're shopping for bulldozers. Ever the foremost of ironies that men are considered the hunters of the species.”

I thought the book was well-done and enjoyable. I'm looking forward to other books by Brian McGreevy.

The story is a great, creative twist on the teen paranormal phenomenon, bringing with it great ideas for werewolves and vampires. I had no problems with the plot.

What I did struggle with were some of the word and phrasing choices. The author uses quite a few words in the normal narrative that many readers would struggle to comprehend. It's one thing if the dialog of certain characters was structured that way to build depth, but with the general narrative, an author risks alienating his readers. Also, some of the phrasings seem to be colloquialisms to the Pennsylvania region and steel industry, but when used only sparingly, as they are in this work, they just don't seem to fit.

Criticisms aside, I really enjoyed this book. If you really enjoyed the series on Netflix, you'll enjoy this book. You get a bit more depth to the teenage characters, especially Shelly, who is my favorite. You can see what they had to flesh out with the series, ie the sheriff and Chasser partnership. But the book doesn't suffer by not having those pieces. I really hope to see this book become a series as I'd love to continue following Roman and Peter's friendship now that the arc has concluded.

I wanted to read this before the show began on Netflix. It is a very strange novel that kept my interest. I had a little bit of a hard time sorting out what happened in some of the chapters, mostly involving big reveals so I will not discuss them here. What I really loved about this book was not the characters (a vampire, a werewolf) but the subplots and the town of Hemlock Grove itself. I feel as though McGreevy really left it open enough to explore this world with many more stories. It was refreshing to see evil being evil, and there were some new kinds of evil here as well. Sometimes the writing gets a little flowery and abstract. This is what leads to the reader confusion. I still can't fully explain what happened to two of the characters. I cannot wait to see what the tv show does for Shelly.