The Cabin at the End of the World
Ratings178
Average rating3.4
This writing style is far from my favorite. Every single line of dialogue is the same (Eric says, Andrew says, she says). It was hard to get through and then left us on a cliff hanger.
it started REALLY good and was a solid 5 star read until I hit the halfway mark and it drastically went downhill. I left the book with negative feelings instead of positive ones. this would do well as a movie (is there one?) but as a book..
A couple and their daughter spending time in a secluded cabin. When a stranger appears and tries to befriend the daughter. Then 3 others come and speak of the apocalypse. The book is suspenseful and has good flow throughout. I did enjoy reading this book just felt it lacking at the end.
i really enjoyed the themes of this book and also the characters but to me the characterization and the pacing was very clunky and this book dragged at so many moments. i also am not a huge fan of apocalyptic media and i really didn't enjoy this author's other apocalyptic book. i enjoyed this one more but i still had problems with it
Sometimes 3 star books can be really disappointing and other times they are satisfying quick reads, this book is the latter. It lacks the jaw dropping end that would elevate it to another level but the Twilight Zone-esque mystery felt unique and intriguing, resulting in an enjoyable read.
Be warned. Paul Tremblay goes to some VERY dark places in this book. That's a compliment, as I don't want my horror to be safe, but it may turn some readers off.
The reason I'm not giving this four stars is the same reason I gave Disappearance at Devil's Rock three stars: it has some parts that drag in the middle. IMO all the banter about “you have to”, “but we're not going to”, “but you must”, “we won't” could have been 1/3 of what it is and still not lose its impact.
But, overall it's a very gripping story and, being a gay man, it was nice to see a horror novel with gay main characters, and not just someone who is stereotypically helpless.
The one word I'd use to explain how I felt through the majority of the books is confusion.
While I did finish it in 2 days, that's because I wanted to finally find the answers. The reasons, the motivations, the causes. I never got that.
I guess the main reason I'm disappointed is because I thought the story was going to go for this huge turn and I was finally going to receive all the answers but I didn't. You can't really understand the why, if the characters themselves don't understand the why. That itself may be the whole point, but still, this just wasn't for me. I feel bad giving it a 2 star just because I may not have understood it as much, but now I know I don't like stories being so open ended. If you want concrete answers in your books, this may not be the book for you.
On one hand, I'm unsatisfied with the book as a whole, but on the other hand, I couldn't put it down, and it made me feel a lot of things, and I feel like I won't be able to stop thinking about it for a while!
Vanaf het begin ademende dit boek een onderhuidse spanning uit die mij geen seconde losliet. In een vrij korte tijdsspanne wist de auteur mij emotioneel betrokken te maken met de hoofdpersonages, maar liet een beetje de bal vallen bij de indringers, maar dit was waarschijnlijk bewust, gezien we meer in het hoofd van de slachtoffers zitten.
De karakteristieke dubbelzinnigheid in de plot die ik ondertussen gewoon ben van deze auteur liet mij ook nu weer doorheen het ganse verhaal raden: zijn de indringers fanatieke gekken of is er iets van aan?
Normaal ben ik geen fan van ambigue verhalen, maar hier komt de auteur er voor mij weer goed mee weg. Vooral ook het feit dat je de gebeurtenissen als een commentaar kan lezen op de huidige informatie- of desinformatie-maatschappij en wat dit teweeg zou kunnen brengen, deden me overstag gaan.
Angstaanjagend, niet in de traditionele boe-ik-ga-je-doen-verschieten-wijze, maar meer in de black-mirror-stof-tot-nadenken-wijze.
i am left conflicted... i actually love endings like the one here But i absolutely feel like this is a story that relies on decisive storytelling and needed the hand to be pushed one way or the other to be anything more than mid. took me like three weeks to read too
I liked the ending, actually found its ambiguity compelling, but the moments leading up to it felt like a slog. I'll write a fuller review later in an attempt to capture what did and didn't work for me.
[That promised update]
The basic premise of a small family in an isolated family coming under threat by a group of four strangers guided by questionable religious revelations is initially intriguing but doesn't really work in execution.
As far as good points, Tremblay's writing is solid, if a little wordy, on a sentence level. And the characters of the family (made of two gay fathers and their adopted daughter) are drawn to be likeable. I can see how their plight will emotionally engage a reader.
The religious quartet invade the cabin and tell the family that God demands they choose and kill one of their own (either of the fathers or the daughter). Should they fail, he will destroy the world.
As much as the premise may be suspenseful, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. This isn't God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son or demanding Lot find 10 righteous men or even sending himself/his son/his messiah to be crucified. Despite the horrific nature of those, they resonate with a certain logic.
What is this sacrifice of a family member supposed to prove and to whom? Is God testing the quartet? Is he testing the family? What does any of this have to do with the fate of all mankind? It's hard not to feel that God is just a novelist who's cooked up a source of tension because tension is what drives novels.
You could try cutting God out of the equation. What if the quartet is forcing this sacrifice for their own ends? There's a suggestion one of the four is a homophobe, but his motivations are quickly rendered irrelevant. We're given no indication that the other three are driven by animus or sadism or self-interest. The quartet is doing this because God told them to and God told them to because...? (See previous paragraph.)
This arbitrariness would have been forgivable in a shorter or more surreal novel, one that leaned into the parabolic nature of the story. Instead, the narrative halts frequently to give us flashbacks or recount the plots of a couple episodes of Steven Universe. This realism only serves to highlight how awkwardly constructed the central premise is.
This book had a fantastic beginning and I was very drawn into the story and couldn't wait to see how it would unfold. As it progressed, however, I became less interested in what was happening and was quite disappointed with the ending. The writing was good, but the story seemed repetitive at some points.
Well.....that's the last time I ever pick up a book without reading its synopsis. I know, that is my fault but so many of the booktubers I watch daily loved this book that I just decided to give it a shot and there are no words to express everything that I am feeling right now. For one, I am realizing that full on horror-suspense novels are not my thing, like at all. I like stories that build up to a very breathtaking climax and this was not that. I felt like I was being suffocated from the very beginning and it was hard to finish this book because I felt like I couldn't breath, couldn't even get a breather.
The story is about a family who gets a visit from four strangers who tell them that they must willingly sacrifice one of their own in order to stop the world from ending. If I would've read the plot I definitely would have realized that end-of-the-world novels are just not for me. As interesting in theory as this plot is, it's just too much, too fast. I think I've given two stars only once before but I really disliked the severity of the story and how fast and full on it hit, without giving so much a moment's warning. I won't even get into the unsatisfactory ending, where nothing was revealed whatsoever and we are left to ponder with our own thoughts.
Further on, the characterization was okay, not the best but not the worst. I liked them but because I had a hard time stomaching the plot, I couldn't get myself too attached to them and what happened to them in the story. It was something akin to a nightmare, in my opinion. We definitely got to see a lot into their minds and their psyches but that too felt suffocating, which I have never experienced or felt in a novel before. It was just too much, in this case I think less is more.
When looking into the writing style, it's not really any different than all the other aspects I've already discussed and talked about. The writing is all over the place and it's hard to decipher at times who said what and who did what. We also get a lot of inner dialogue but it's a little too wordy and I found myself zoning out, not being able to fully grasp the whole wordy description. I think the fact that we go between so many perspectives also doesn't help the situation, it just confuses it more. And with the chapters being so lengthy, there were times when I couldn't finish the chapter and when I would come back to the book the next day I'd be confused as to who's perspective we were on.
In conclusion, I struggled with this book like I've never struggled to get through a book before in my life. There is only one phrase I can think of to describe this novel and it would be “too much”. The plot was too much, too soon, the characters psyches were overwhelming and too wordy and the writing itself was just too all over the place. I would not recommend this book to anyone who wants a beginning, middle and an end to their novels.
DNF - pg. 142
Three stars for what I did read
This book started off just so strongly. The writing completely sucking me in and making me understand bits and pieces of Wen, Andrew, and Eric. The way that Leonard was interacting with Wen at the beginning, and her internal thoughts with that were just so good. But then it is revealed why they are there and it felt like the wind was taken out of the sails, even with the scene with Redmond. Without spoiling anything, maybe that's just my personal preference but their reasoning for them being there just took me out of it completely. I'll give it another chance sometime down the road but just not right now.
This writing style is far from my favorite. Every single line of dialogue is the same (Eric says, Andrew says, she says). It was hard to get through and then left us on a cliff hanger.
Wow. This is probably the wildest thing I have ever read. I couldn't stop reading it. I cannot stop thinking about it. This blew my little socks off!
An uneven, slow-moving plot with a good premise and nothing else. Wanted to hurry up and read this before the movie version came out but regretting I did. Oh well.
It was SO GOOD, it was SO good omfg
I am so happy I kicked off this year with this book
I really thought I knew what was going to happen with this book as soon as I finished the first chapter (I liked the premise regardless so I wasn't mad about it) and THEN it absolutely punched me in the neck like 5 times
Honestly I read the bulk of it in 2 days and I really genuinely loved this AND the author includes chapter notes at the end when you're done ?????? And I was like OH WORMMMMM oh my gosh you have to read it however if you don't like open ended books/unanswered questions this might not be super pleasant for you