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The Accursed

books

19th July 2014

"The Accursed"
By: Joyce Carol Oates

I really liked this book, despite the fact that it's nowhere near what is considered to be a horror story today. One of my over riding impressions is that she wrote "The Accursed" in the style of books, horror books in particular of the time, rather than in the modern style. This is why it does not come across as a normal horror story in the slightest.

Almost all of the horror is suggested, vaguely, or comes across more as a fantasy novel than a horror story - the part where the young boy Todd is trapped in the Bog Kingdom and has to defeat the evil King in order to escape, was to me a dark fantasy story and not a horror story. The actual horror aspects, especially the vampires is suggested, rather than shown and a lot of the story is told from the viewpoints who have no idea what's going on and can give the most basic suggestions of what is happening to other characters.

I did enjoy this book a lot, but I can tell why other people don't. If they went in expecting what we would consider to be a relatively fast moving horror story and don't enjoy the style of writing in this book they are going to have a lot of trouble getting through its 667 pages.