Review: Not What I Expected
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 9, 2014
Viral House is definitely not the typical haunted house story; which in my experience made the book engaging. Yes, the story moves very slow at the start of the book but there are several things that occur that spark an interest. If you're the type to follow those interests through, then you wil see the worth of that when the story picks up a little less than halfway through.Viral House stars two main leads(heroes): Paul(a recovering addict) and Cheryl(a sister searching for her missing brother). So of course they meet through this search for her brother Jesse; who too was a recovering addict until he wasn't and then dissapeared. All signs point to a man by the name of Colton, the secodary antagonist of the story. The first being "The Viral House". Colton is a dealer of a substance called "Essence". He concerns himself with forming part of the "Union". Terms that clue you to the reality of the story but somehow still leave the reader wanting to know what these terms really mean and what they really are.Several POV's play a part throughout the story, those including the main cast mentioned above with a few additional characters to provide the reader with various looks as to what lurks inside the viral house and the connection they all share to one another and the main cast and their pasts. I really enjoyed all these POV's. It's a hard thing to include this many people and somehow manage to capture the reader's attention and allow them to see at the end how all of these provide a significance to the end result.I felt Joe Sharp did a good job developing the character's and plot. I wish Colton's POV in regards to his past had been revealed a lot sooner than it occured in the story. Considering that he was a lot of the focus in the beginning, while Paul and Cheryl took a prevalant role midway to the end, with the inclusion of Henry; Cheryl's father. I liked the ending-although bittersweet-but it felt somewhat unfinished.I would recommend for those looking for a different type of read. My original rating was a 4.5.