Road of Bones
Ratings11
Average rating2.9
15
Ratings11
Average rating2.9
An American documentarian travels a haunted highway across the frozen tundra of Siberia in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden’s Road of Bones, a “tightly wound, atmospheric, and creepy as hell” (Stephen King) supernatural thriller. Surrounded by barren trees in a snow-covered wilderness with a dim, dusky sky forever overhead, Siberia’s Kolyma Highway is 1200 miles of gravel packed permafrost within driving distance of the Arctic Circle. A narrow path where drivers face such challenging conditions as icy surfaces, limited visibility, and an average temperature of sixty degrees below zero, fatal car accidents are common. But motorists are not the only victims of the highway. Known as the Road of Bones, it is a massive graveyard for the former Soviet Union’s gulag prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of people worked to death and left where their bodies fell, consumed by the frozen elements and plowed beneath the permafrost road. Fascinated by the history, documentary producer Felix “Teig” Teigland is in Russia to drive the highway, envisioning a new series capturing Life and Death on the Road of Bones with a ride to the town of Akhust, “the coldest place on Earth”, collecting ghost stories and local legends along the way. Only, when Teig and his team reach their destination, they find an abandoned town, save one catatonic nine-year-old girl—and a pack of predatory wolves, faster and smarter than any wild animals should be. Pursued by the otherworldly beasts, Teig’s companions confront even more uncanny and inexplicable phenomena along the Road of Bones, as if the ghosts of Stalin’s victims were haunting them. It is a harrowing journey that will push Teig beyond endurance and force him to confront the sins of his past.
Reviews with the most likes.
this book was so short but took forever to read. the horror in this just wasn't my favorite and there was a part of this that pulled at my heartstrings but it felt like nothing happened even tho it did. the bitterly cold atmosphere was really the only part of this book that was fleshed out
i really wanted to love this. and i didn't hate it, 3 stars is enjoyable, but there were a lot of things i wish it had done differently.
i appreciated heavily the atmosphere and the description of things that golden wrote here, it was very stark and i could visualize it super clearly, and i liked it for that, that was honestly my favorite part of this entire book, especially how the ending scenes were described, but also the coldness and isolation and the road itself.
i'm glad i read it but it also felt like i was comparing it a bit to “the only good indians” and that one just takes this concept so much further. they aren't apples to apples but i couldn't help but compare them. still this was a good read and i'm glad i finally picked it up as part of my 2024 physical backlog challenge ☺️
If you like paranormal thrillers set in a remote location, this will be the book for you. I was intrigued from the beginning of getting to know the MC's Tieg and Prentiss. Being a big fan of paranormal investigator shows and the like, I was excited to learn that that was the background these men had. And their goal in being in this remote part of the world was to create the next best show. So, I was a fan of the characters right away. The excitement in the plot really started right from page one. I could really feel what they were feeling being in this super cold, remote area in Siberia.
That's the next thing...it is cold. At first, I found the descriptions of the cold endearing and helpful. I can barely imagine, but I felt like this was the best I'd ever be able to get close to imagining. However, as the book goes on there is no way that you can forget it's cold. It's mentioned so regularly by every single character, multiple times. It went past proving the point to being a bit grating. However, this was only mildly annoying. I would quickly lose the annoyance of it when gripped with the issues that these characters end up facing. And those problems surmount as the book goes on.
Overall, I find this book to be exciting and unique. I enjoyed the writing style. There were times it did drag and felt repetitive, but overall a good book. The one thing that I think would have made this book so much better for me is if we got a bit more information on a big character/plot point. However, I don't feel like it was very necessary to elaborate on it for the story to be a good one.
Thank you Netgalley and St. Martins Press for this ARC for a fair and honest review.
