HEX

Gruesome read at times, but a well-told story with twists I didn’t see coming. Recommend this for fans of paranormal/horror and mystery.

“Nothing’s normal here.”Katherine van Wyler was sentenced to death for witchcraft in 1664 but that’s not where her story ends. Hundreds of years later, the Black Rock Witch remains, her eyes and mouth sewn shut.Once you move to Black Spring, you will never live anywhere else. The residents of this insular community are used to living alongside this emaciated, chained woman but they’ve been lulled into a false sense of security. If Katherine’s eyes ever open, her power will be unleashed.This book has been on my radar for years and waited patiently on my Kindle for two. The upcoming release of the sequel gave me the perfect excuse to dive in and then I almost didn’t finish it. To be honest, if I hadn’t already committed to reviewing the sequel, I probably wouldn’t have.“She’s not going to let you go. You live in Black Spring now. That means the curse is on you as well.”It’s rare for a book to have a negative impact on me. Reading is my joy. Even when I read memoirs of people who have experienced the horrific, I find hope in their resilience.This book, though, had a significant impact on my mental health. You could say it did its job, with the witch reaching out from the pages to infect me with her curse. It got to the point where, each time I started reading, I’d think ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’I don’t think of myself as a reader with many rules. I’m happy to wander between genres and dip my toe into unfamiliar territory. Do what you want to the humans, especially if we’re in a slasher, and I’ll likely forgive you. I may even cheer you on. If you harm my fictional animals, though, we’re going to have a problem. I had a big problem with what the animals, one in particular, experienced in this book.I don’t want you to think this wasn’t a good book. It was. It was well written. I got attached to a couple of the characters. I needed to know what hell was going to be unleashed once Katherine’s eyes opened. But wow, it really did a number on me.“Peacocks. You know what that means, right?”Content warnings are included on my blog.I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars.

It's been a long time since I've been this sickened by a book. The suspense building in this book is insidiously delightful. I love how well done the foreshadowing is. The writing kept me immersed, and I did not want to put this book down! Highly recommend if you're the kind of person that thinks humans are the real monsters.

If only he had apologized in the preface, I would have saved myself some time.I truly wish there were "half star" options, because this is a two-and-a-half star book if ever there was one. It has moments of suspense, moments of terror, but these are scattered pearls on a long rope of "who cares" writing and storytelling. The book is not just too long for the story, it feels positively bloated. An editor could have cut 100 pages and the reader wouldn't have missed a thing.The author draws heavily on two famous works of fiction to move the action in this book: The Monkey's Paw and Pet Semetary. At times, the book seems not so much a homage to these two stellar bits of storytelling as a blatant rip-off. Characterization is also inorganic. Characters in Hex's final chapters behave so differently than they had throughout the book that the reader is left scratching his or her head saying, "He did what?" The first scenes try ... but fail...to presage the end. It's as if early in the book a character cuts a watermelon in two, and from that you're supposed to say, "Oh, of course he bisected his sister. You knew that was going to happen because of the watermelon scene."For me though, the worst was this....SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSThe author could not decide whether the Katherine was...not to sound too much like the Wizard of Oz...a good witch or a bad witch. The end of the book implies that the evil in the town was not a matter of witchery, but of the latent evil in the hearts of the residents. But that negates the 300 pages preceding, which describe the witch hexing people, keeping them captive in town, killing a bunch of scientists, causing one of the protagonist's sons to hang himself, and causing another to go blind. This is not artful ambiguity. This is a matter of the author being unable to make a decision.Save your money. Re-read Pet Sematary.

This book has some moments that I'd consider legitimately scary. I'd never been actually spooked by a book before.Solid folk horror read!

Como puede haber alguien que le haya puesto una, dos o tres estrellas a este libro.Quien abrió el museo y dejo que tremenda obra saliera.

With his original approach to the topics of a cursed small town and witchcraft, Heuvelt gives us a deep insight into human relationships creating a setting and a plot that reminded me of good old Stephen King.

Una maldición que todos asumen con mucha normalidad. La premisa me pareció entretenida, graciosa y diferente. A partir de las 100 páginas o así, deja de ser un libro gracioso y se oscurece. La peor maldición no es convivir con una bruja, la maldición es la condición humana, nuestros miedos, fanatismos e irracionalidad.

Im 17.Jahrhundert wird die "Hexe" Katherine van Wyl von den Bewohnern ihres Dorfes bestialisch umgebracht. Seit damals findet sie keine Ruhe und sucht die Bewohner der Kleinstadt Black Springs auch in ihren Häusern heim. Ein alter Aberglaube hält die Bewohner dieses Ortes für immer in ihm fest. Wer ihm längere Zeit fernbleibt oder auszubrechen versucht, bezahlt mit seinem Leben. So will es der "Fluch der Hexe", deren zusammengenähte Augenlider niemals geöffnet werden dürfen. Sonst droht der Untergang..Je mehr der Leser in den dumpf-provinziellen Alltag von Black Springs eindringt, desto mehr Fragezeichen ergeben sich für ihn. Ist es wirklich der Hexenfluch, der die Bewohner in seinem Bann hält-oder ihr eigener Wahn, einem Gemisch aus provinzieller Kleingeisterei und nicht bewältigter Schuld? Der Roman gibt darauf keine eindeutige Antwort, ein Ende mit Schrecken ist aber gewiss...Fans von Stephen King werden diesen Roman lieben, Freunde des gepflegten Provinz-Horrors ebenfalls!