Keith K's Reviews > Diavola

** spoiler alert ** 2.8 stars.

Has so many of the familiar issues as other modern horror/thriller books that I am wondering if my issues are actually features of the writing and not bugs. I really think I may just be out of the loop on modern horror writing...

So, what are my issues? Glad you asked:

First, the characters. I am resisting the urge to put the tag “likable” or “relatable” before “characters” because I do not think compelling characters need to be likable or relatable, it’s all based on the story you are telling, but these characters felt uniquely and unrelentingly repelling.

Christopher is an unmodulated asshole, his insecurity and aggression were accidentally bumped up to 11, and he ends up infecting Benny, because there is no clear connection or attraction point, I ended up not caring about Benny pretty early on, because what kind of guy would be attracted to Christopher?

Nicole is your stereotypical “high strung” control freak, but she is also pretty nakedly aggressive toward Anna. There is also a line later in the book about Nicole preferring conflict happen remotely and not in-person, but that seems antithetical to the Nicole of the earlier narrative. In one scene she confronts Anna about an abortion in a church, feels pretty open to direct conflict to me.

The father figures and mother were just 2-D stereotypes, there is not much to report, same with the girls.

The shallowness of the ancillary characters also hits at a larger point, there is so much time spent on referencing the girls "emotional state" and Anna's parents anger toward her and it all doesn't go anywhere. Once the story shifts from Italy, I was convinced the family had died, and they might as well have. The emotional dynamics of the siblings and family just felt like they were placed into a randomizer.

My other issues are with the "mystery" and the tone. The mystery takes a long time to establish, with many visits to locals and small discoveries, only to have the entire mystery solved by a simple internet search.

It feels like this "post-modern: we know we can't scare you, so we'll all just try to get in on the genre with you" approach, where you try to freshen the genre up by demystifying the climax. It largely involves a modern day character undercutting the ghost with their "blaise, devil-may-care" New World attitude that no medieval farmer would ever dare attempt with a spirit! Anna devolves into a psyche fracturing spiral, only to then walk through this house of torment bullying the ghost like they attended the same Middle School. It's annoying and makes all the build up of, "does Anna have a darkness in her..."; "is she just losing her mind?" Feel unimportant and like an elaborate emotional Macguffin.

I just don't think I get what books like this are going for? The characters feel weirdly detached from their own horror story. The lore and character/family dynamics are surface level and any depth is relegated to how unlikeable the author was willing to make their characters. I don't have to like your characters, but I should care.