BOOK REVIEW: The Watchers by A.M. Shine
A dark tale of folklore and suspense.
What a fun book this was! The Watchers was recommended to me as part of the 12 books in 12 months recommended by 12 friends challenge for the year, and man was it a great recommendation. I can honestly say that going into it, I really wasn’t sure if I was going to like it, but I was in the mood for a horror, so I dove in.
While it was listed as a horror, I didn’t find it scary, but that shouldn't’ be a surprise, very little scares me. What I was was engaged and intrigued and 100% invested in the characters and trying to figure out what was happening and how it was going to end.
A quick synopsis would go something like this: Mira, a struggling, starving artist, agrees to take a condor on a little road trip to sell to the buddy of the owner of the bar she works at in exchange for keeping a nice amount of the money. However, she takes a wrong turn and ends up on the edge of the forest where her car breaks down and her phone won’t work. Like any smart character in a horror story, she takes the bird (in its cage) and starts huffing it through the forest. As night falls, she stumbles upon a building where a woman is screaming at her to run and get into the building. After she is safely in the building, she learns there are creatures that live in this uncharted forest that come out at night and watch them from the “mirrored” walls of this building they refer to as “The Coop.” The mission is how to survive these creatures and escape.
Mira becomes the fourth occupant of the Coop. She joins Madeline (the woman yelling at her to get into the Coop) who seems to be the controlling boss of the group, Daniel, the 19 year old passive and slightly submissive teenager, and Kira, the 20 something widow whose husband was just recently killed by the creatures, who are referred to as The Watchers. I’m big on characters and one of the things that I appreciated most here was this eclectic group. Even though there are only four people, plus a bird, there is a diversity that makes you connect to each character in a different way, but there is also something there that you know you are missing. Something that is just out of reach, that just doesn’t quite make sense.
But hope isn’t founded on certainties. It’s the belief that the bad ending might not happen.
There was something off about Madeline, and it made me hesitant to really trust her, and Kira and Daniel were great in their roles but struggled trying to live up to Madeline’s expectations which were attached to survival. It was Mira that I really connected to. I mean it makes sense, she is ultimately the main character, but I loved that she also was a watcher. She was a watcher of people. As an artist she was always studying people and trying to figure them out and looking for the next moment to capture on the canvas. This caused her to process the experiences in the Coop a little differently and challenged Madeline on many of her ideals. Throwing four people into this environment where they share one room, no beds and just a wall of windows and a random table and chairs in the middle is almost like an episode of Big Brother.
The best way to describe this book is part Maze Runner, part Bird Box with a splash of Lost. It was chunked with an expertise made to not let any particular element of the plot drag out too much. When there were still several chapters left, I was like, what in the world is there that still needs to happen…that is when the twist comes. You know that there was going to be a twist, and I will say that there were moments when I actually contemplated the correct twist, but I really truly thought it was going to come from a different angle. All this lead to a pretty exciting ending confrontation, which still wasn't the full ending of the book. That aspect sets the stage for what could potentially be a sequel, but I feel that it is more fitting that it was simply created to be an open-ended conclusion, which by the way, I’m not typically a big fan of, but I will say it worked here.
Every transition from scene to setting to character actions just felt smooth and natural. I think that’s why it was so easy to read. The folklore element added a little bit of creepiness, but it wasn’t scary. The language and writing style can again only be described as smooth and flowing.
Some of my specific thinking:
The poker game was perfectly fitting.
Poor Daniel!
The twist scene with Madeline, Kira and Mira was probably the creepiest part of the book as well as my favorite.
Wondering for half the book - “Who controls the lights?”
The Bunker and the Professor - Who even DOES that?!?!
Did I mention, poor Daniel? No? Poor Daniel!
I’m so glad I read this book, I really am. I also think that you should read it too.
Where does it land on my bookshelf?
I’m sure you can probably guess that it obviously sits on my top shelf. I did listen to the audio of this one and will say that the narrator was fantastic in capturing the tone and mood of the story. Are there elements overlooked and wouldn’t make total sense in the real world clearly, but guess what? It’s fiction! Guess what else? There is nothing so profound that you can’t just enjoy the story for what it is. Will this book be for everyone? No. I can totally see people completely disconnected from it. However, I loved the aspects of the story that set this apart from others. I also don’t read a lot of horror, so I loved it. I highly recommend this if you are looking for something a little different. Check it out here!
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