The Night Strangers
Ratings20
Average rating3.5
Rosemary's Babies Amityville Horror In The Herb Gardens of The Stepford Witches
OR
Everything I Hated About Ghost Whisperer
Could have been a 4 but THAT ending. :{
I understand why this book is reviewed as it is. Still, I was engaged throughout and found it interesting, if a bit jam-packed with a muddled premise and dueling narratives that just didn't exactly jive. I can enjoy that, as life is like that sometimes, but this one felt off balance and forced at points.
This was a very interesting story. It is very well written. The details are amazing. I am very interested in plants and their meanings, so having herbalists in the story was fun for me. For a while, I thought it was going to be a ghost story, but the twist was good and the ending was.. well, you have to read it to find out! I want to read more by this author.
This is the second book this year that tricked me by being excellent until I pass my cut off point (four chapters or 100 pages) and then just sucking. I feel like I carried this one on my back during a marathon I didn't want to run.
I did switch to audio book about mid-way though but even that was painful at times.
The words “moreover” and “tincture” were so awful sounding, and he uses these words A LOT!
And constantly calling these crazy asses “herbalists” was super getting on my nerves. This WASPy retelling of Rosemary's Baby happens ON TOP of a poor airline pilot who is being haunted by the ghosts of people who died on a plane he crashed.
So, it loses one star for having 10 year olds that speak and think like 40 year olds and another star for being just plain bourgeoisie.
Beyond that, I have read many, many reviews and it seems this is NOT the Bohjalian I should have started with. His fans say this is a terrible representation of his work and someone I trust very much gave me another title to read and begged me not to give up on him.
So, I will give him the benefit of the doubt, simply because he had me enthralled with the first part of this book.