Review: Suspenseful stories but endings are weak
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 26, 2012
It's interesting to me that the compilation of these two stories got higher ratings than the individual stories.  I enjoyed both tales though they were not without their shortcomings.  The positive: I enjoyed the author's writing style. He does know how to create suspense and I felt his descriptions at times (ex., during the blizzard) really placed me in the scene.  That being said, I felt at times there were subplots in Dismember that went on too long (the mall scene) or didn't need to be included at all (the attack scene in the mother's house).  Remove or at least pare down those scenes and there would be ample space to give us more critical information. For example, what was Mr. Boots motivation in taking Davey and what happened to Davey over those twenty years?  And, in Freeze, what is the origin or at least some explanation for the ice monsters?  For me, these monsters are so out of the ordinary that some explanation of their existence is a requirement.  But my biggest complaint, with both stories, are the abrupt endings. I'm guessing the author prefers to leave the endings open to the reader's interpretation but with Freeze in particular the ending is so abrupt it almost seems like the story went unfinished.  Or maybe the idea is to leave these stories open to enable sequels.  If so I'd like to know that I'm reading the beginning of a series before I commit my time to the first book.Again, I enjoyed the suspense and if some readers feel I'm being too critical it's because I do see a lot of positives and I'd like to see even better stories down the road.  I'm not sure, though, I can commit to reading more from this author if the stories all end the same way.