{"id":10065,"date":"2024-02-04T21:26:24","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T01:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=10065"},"modified":"2024-02-04T21:26:24","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T01:26:24","slug":"book-review-marriage-by-wol-vriey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-marriage-by-wol-vriey\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Marriage by Wol-vriey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cover<\/a><\/p>\n

Marriage<\/em> by Wol-vriey<\/p>\n

Burning Bulb Publishing, 2023<\/p>\n

ISBN: 9781948278621<\/p>\n

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition<\/p>\n

Buy:\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Marriage <\/em>is the equivalent of a silly 80\u2019s B-grade horror film. There’s plenty of gore and graphic sex, a crazy plot, and little depth or making sense.\u00a0 The last third of the story finishes out the book with a bang that helps make up for a lackluster beginning.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

The protagonist, Adam Norwood, has an affliction that causes his skin to catch on fire when exposed to sunlight, so he inhabits a darkened mansion on an river-island, with his wife and father in law.\u00a0 Drunken debauchery takes place at the mansion every couple weeks, with a somewhat rotating cast of overage party animals.\u00a0 Sounds like fun, but Adam keeps having dreams of his wife killing him, in vivid detail–, vivid enough to seem real.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That\u2019s the plot for the first part, and it\u2019s pretty thin.\u00a0 There\u2019s no real character development of interest, rather they are standard caricatures of 30-something drunken lechers.\u00a0 Most readers probably won\u2019t find them interesting, since they are all interchangeable: it would have helped the story to flesh the characters out. As it is, if anything, you\u2019ll be rooting for them to all get killed off!\u00a0 \u00a0Adam also needed further character development. What does he do every day, living in a darkened mansion on a permanent basis?\u00a0 Binge-watch old WCCW wrestling matches?\u00a0 Write a memoir of the trials of living with his affliction?\u00a0 Deify plums?\u00a0 And how in the world did his father-in-law become a genius at witchcraft?\u00a0 This part of the book is rather tedious, and tough to get through.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BUT\u2026 on page 83, the narrative moves away from its early repetitiveness and shifts into gear, introducing a black magic element.\u00a0 On page 128, it kicks into overdrive, and it\u2019s a wild ride to the finish of the 171 pages.\u00a0 There are worm-hole creatures that remind one of the movie “Tremors”, some resurrection, and a wacky but entertaining set of explanations for the weird happenings on the island.\u00a0 They may be pretty outlandish, but this IS horror fiction: realism isn’t required.\u00a0 The most intriguing part is Adam’s sleuthing, to find if what he sees is really happening, or all in his head.\u00a0 It\u2019s the best part of the book: it keeps you guessing, and holds your interest.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bottom line: it\u2019s short on making much sense, but the last part of the book provides enough of a payoff to make getting through the first part worth it.\u00a0 It\u2019s not on the level of the author\u2019s real bell-ringers like The Final Girl<\/em> and Women<\/em>, but it\u2019s still fun.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marriage by Wol-vriey Burning Bulb Publishing, 2023 ISBN: 9781948278621 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition Buy:\u00a0Amazon.com   Marriage is the equivalent of a silly 80\u2019s B-grade horror film. There’s plenty of gore and graphic sex, a crazy plot, and little depth or making sense.\u00a0 The last third of the story finishes out the book with a bang<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2320,645,749,5551,5552,4967,3669],"class_list":["post-10065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-extreme-horror","tag-horror-book-reviews","tag-horror-books","tag-island-horror","tag-marriage","tag-witchcraft","tag-wol-vriey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10065"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10070,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10065\/revisions\/10070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}