{"id":6742,"date":"2019-08-07T09:33:11","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T13:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=6742"},"modified":"2019-08-07T09:33:11","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T13:33:11","slug":"book-review-the-nightmare-room-and-the-hungry-ones-messy-man-series-vols-1-and-2-by-chris-sorenson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-the-nightmare-room-and-the-hungry-ones-messy-man-series-vols-1-and-2-by-chris-sorenson\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Nightmare Room and The Hungry Ones (Messy Man series, vols 1 and 2) by Chris Sorenson"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The Nightmare Room<\/em>\u00a0(Messy Man<\/em> series, vol. 1) by Chris Sorensen<\/p>\n

Harmful Monkey Press, 2018<\/p>\n

ISBN: 978-0-908342-41-2<\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

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

The Hungry Ones (Messy Man<\/em>\u00a0series, vol. 2)\u00a0by Chris Sorenson<\/p>\n

Harmful Monkey Press, 2019<\/p>\n

ISBN: 978-0998342-42-9<\/p>\n

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

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The Nightmare Room<\/em> and The Hungry Ones<\/em> are the first two volumes in an ongoing horror series by Chris Sorenson.\u00a0 Despite being billed as stand alone novels, they do need to be read in order. Otherwise, the second volume won’t make any sense.\u00a0 The initial book, The Nightmare Room<\/em>, features Chris and Hannah Larson, a couple in their mid-thirties who have suffered through the tragedy of losing their only child to cancer at a young age.\u00a0 In an attempt to put the past behind them, they uproot themselves from New York City and move back to Peter’s hometown of Maple City, Illinois.\u00a0 Peter’s parents live there in an assisted living facility, and his dad suffers from dementia.\u00a0 Peter and Hannah move into an abandoned farmhouse owned by Peter’s dad, and Peter soon has to deal with spectral events (strange audio recordings, scratching sounds, ghostly figures) in the house, which tie back to his own upbringing.\u00a0 The Hungry Ones<\/em> is more of the same in Maple City, but with a different protagonist (Jessie Voss) and a different haunted building:\u00a0 an old, abandoned motel with a history of murder being done within its walls.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both books are similar in their writing style, although The Hungry Ones<\/em> is clearly the stronger of the two.\u00a0 The first book feels like an author taking his first trial steps at writing a full length horror novel.\u00a0 It’s written in a sparse fashion, without a whole lot of description.\u00a0\u00a0 That works for certain types of stories, but when dealing with the supernatural, it helps to go heavy on explaining what’s happening.\u00a0 Sorensen’s writing is vague enough in the first book that understanding what is going on can be confusing at times, when Peter is combating the antagonist, known as the “Messy Man’. The second volume in the series is an improvement over the first.\u00a0 The descriptions are better, and the hotel is a much more interesting backdrop.\u00a0 Sorenson peppers it with a variety of ghostly characters, and he wisely intersperses the narration with brief chapters explaining how each of those spirits came to be.\u00a0 These interludes provide some of the best writing in the book, as each character proves to be entertaining, with a unique backstory.\u00a0 Jessie Voss also proves to be a more interesting protagonist. She got a large sum of money in an accident settlement, and decides to invest it all in revamping a motel with a tragic past.\u00a0 She’s a headstrong woman, and holds the attention better than Peter’s character. Jessie’s friend Stephanie also adds some depth to the story.\u00a0 The variety of characters in The Hungry Ones<\/em> accounts for a good deal of the improvement over the first volume.<\/p>\n

Both books combined give a decent start to the series, but as noted, explaining things a little better would help the series in the future.\u00a0 The character of Woodrow in the second book was important to the plot, but it was difficult to understand his reason for vaping fluid with bits of bone mixed in, as well as his control (or lack thereof) over three ghosts that occupy the same room as him at the hotel.\u00a0 Peter’s dealings with the Messy Man and his melding with him were also difficult to follow.\u00a0 Example: at one point, Peter threatens the spirit attached to him with “if you try to stop me, I’ll split myself in two and drown you in life, every single second of it.”\u00a0 It sounds<\/em> good, but what does it actually mean?\u00a0 Writing in a metaphysical sense sometimes works, but in this case, and in many other places in the book, the flow would be helped if it were more straightforward.<\/p>\n

If you are okay with some things not making total sense, and you like supernatural stories with minimal gore, this is a book series you could probably get into.\u00a0 These books could probably be classified as ‘horror lite’, so they would be perfectly suited for YA readers looking to start getting into ghost and horror reading.\u00a0 Veteran readers of ghost and horror stories may want to look elsewhere.\u00a0 Both books are quick reads, clocking in at under 300 pages.\u00a0 The easily readable length, combined with the style of writing, make them perfect gifts for literary kids around Halloween.<\/p>\n

Contains: mild violence, mild profanity.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nightmare Room\u00a0(Messy Man series, vol. 1) by Chris Sorensen Harmful Monkey Press, 2018 ISBN: 978-0-908342-41-2 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition   The Hungry Ones (Messy Man\u00a0series, vol. 2)\u00a0by Chris Sorenson Harmful Monkey Press, 2019 ISBN: 978-0998342-42-9 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition   The Nightmare Room and The Hungry Ones are the first two volumes in an<\/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":[3974,700,699,3973,3972,3971],"class_list":["post-6742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chris-sorenson","tag-ghost-stories","tag-haunted-house-fiction","tag-messy-man","tag-the-hungry-ones","tag-the-nightmare-room"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742","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=6742"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6745,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742\/revisions\/6745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}