Review: Amity (Just Say No)

Amity
Author: Micol Ostow
Publication Date: August 26th 2014         
Publisher: EgmontUSA
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

For fans of Stephen King and American Horror Story, a gruesome thriller suggested by the events of the Amityville Horror.

Connor's family moves to Amity to escape shady business deals. Ten years later, Gwen's family moves to Amity for a fresh start after she's recovered from a psychotic break.

But something is not right about this secluded house. Connor's nights are plagued with gore-filled dreams of demons and destruction. Dreams he kind of likes. Gwen has lurid visions of corpses that aren't there and bleeding blisters that disappear in the blink of an eye. She knows Amity is evil and she must get her family out, but who would ever believe her?

Amity isn't just a house. She is a living force, bent on manipulating her inhabitants to her twisted will. She will use Connor and Gwen to bring about a bloody end as she's done before. As she'll do again.

Alternating between parallel narratives, Amity is a tense and terrifying tale suggested by true-crime events that will satisfy even the most demanding horror fan.

 

So, I'm keeping this short because 1) there's not much to say about it and 2) it's hard to even know what to say because not much actually went on.

If anyone asked describe Amity in one word it would be disturbing. Because if I said this was disappointing, my house might kill me. Firstly, let's talk about the false marketing shall we? It sounds like an Amityville Horror retelling, looks like an Amityville Horror retelling, the house is described like Amityville and It's even called Amity, so guess what it is?

Not an Amityville Horror retelling. Colour me confused and disappointed. House don't kill me.

Despite that I did enjoy it, I guess, I mean, it's horror, you know? It's crazy and spooky and creepy and this didn't disappoint in that sense, I mean, there were a few things that annoyed me, you know? Example. The exact sentence I just wrote, I mean, one perspective was written like this all the way through, you know? By Connor, our friendly little Sociopath. AND ISN'T IT ANNOYING ALREADY?

Then we have the other perspective, whose (crazy), with every weird thing going on, (crazy), everything she hears and sees she can't trust because (crazy) she knows there's something wrong with Amity, deeply wrong, but she keeps trying to ignore it because that's (crazy.)  Again, this (crazy) perspective is written like this by Gwen, our neighbourly schizophrenic introvert. THIS ONE I ENJOYED (shocker.)

But, add Connors perspective and Gwen's perspective= 2 perspectives x 2 different era's. 2 perspectives x two different era's= two halves of a story that's basically the same and a little pointless to be honest. Revealing the story like that builds up the tension sure, but I didn't get it, I would've preferred one of the stories that then would've been fleshed out more, because with the way it is written, we learn this.  We learn Connor and his twin, Annie's, story that's set two decades before Gwen and her almost twin, Luke's story, now. As you go along it's easy to see that Amity attracts certain...people, with a certain family dynamic that already has a little poison in them. You also get a little background information into Amity's history that we didn't see backed up that much by anything concrete and was rushed in instead of infused with it along the way.

Amity relied heavily on the weirdness and eerie , which kept me reading, otherwise I'm sure I would've said buh-bye to it, for the characters alone because I didn't like them at all, especially certain family members. So if you want a mindless scary read? This is your book.

Rating: 2.5/5