{"id":7442,"date":"2020-04-07T13:03:48","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T17:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=7442"},"modified":"2020-04-07T13:03:48","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T17:03:48","slug":"book-review-dear-laura-by-gemma-amor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-dear-laura-by-gemma-amor\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Dear Laura by Gemma Amor"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dear Laura <\/em>by Gemma Amor<\/p>\n

Self published, 2019<\/p>\n

ISBN: 978-1-797875-7-12<\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

There are a lot of horrors in modern reality that don’t require monsters and boogeymen.\u00a0\u00a0 When combined, child abduction and fear of the unknown are two of the most effective ones.\u00a0 In Gemma Amor’s quick 120 page novella, she uses them well.\u00a0 This is a fast story with no drag between the pages, although the minimalist style she writes with may be off-putting to readers who prefer heavily developed stories.\u00a0 \u00a0Those who get squeamish about child abduction and murder in their fiction may want to look elsewhere, although there are no gory details.<\/p>\n

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Laura is a 14-year-old girl, who has the misfortune to leave her best friend and first boyfriend, Bobby,\u00a0 alone at the bus stop for five minutes.\u00a0 She returns to see him violating the #1 rule for kids: don’t ever get in a van with a stranger.\u00a0 The van leaves, and that’s the last anyone ever hears from Bobby.\u00a0 It’s not the last Laura hears, though.\u00a0 On her birthday, she receives her first letter from ‘X,’ who claims to have taken Bobby.\u00a0\u00a0 Thus begins a bizarre game of quid pro quo, <\/em>where X reveals a little more of Bobby’s fate with each yearly letter, as long as Laura leaves a personal object he requests at a specified location.\u00a0 Some of the objects are mundane, and some require a personal and painful sacrifice of a physical nature from Laura.\u00a0 This continues for decades, until the story resolves in the final few pages.<\/p>\n

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The story is told in the third person, and only from the point of view of the protagonist, it never shifts away from Laura.\u00a0 The narration throughout Dear Laura <\/em>is a very stripped-down, bare bones type of writing.\u00a0 There is little time given to description in this book, and the backstory to the characters is essentially non-existent.\u00a0 Dialogue?\u00a0 Forget about it, there’s only ~10-15 lines of dialogue scattered throughout Dear Laura<\/em>‘s 117 pages.\u00a0 This is very straightforward writing: it tells what is happening, and doesn’t elaborate on anything.\u00a0 Does the simplistic style weaken the writing?\u00a0 No, it doesn’t.\u00a0 Considering the bleakness of the subject matter, the basic style that author Amor uses lends to the curiously odd appeal.\u00a0\u00a0 People always seem to want answers to everything in life, and when people read books, they don’t want to just know what the villain did; they want to know WHY he did it.\u00a0 Amor doesn’t waste time elaborating on such niceties, as they would get in the way and slow down the story.\u00a0 That’s why her sparse writing style really shines with the novella’s subject matter. Sure the reader will have more questions than answers at the end of the story, but often, that’s what life is like anyhow.\u00a0 Considering how often people in this world do evil things for no particular reason, the overall lack of explanation for actions of certain characters in Dear Laura<\/em> make it all the more interesting\u2026and realistic.<\/p>\n

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For readers that want an interesting, quick-paced story with no wasted time, Dear Laura <\/em>should land right in their wheelhouse.\u00a0 Most readers should find this appealing, the only exceptions being people who require densely layered stories and no plot holes.\u00a0 Recommended.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contains: violence, child abduction<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Editor’s note: <\/strong>Dear Laura<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a First Novel.<\/p>\n

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

Dear Laura by Gemma Amor Self published, 2019 ISBN: 978-1-797875-7-12 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition   There are a lot of horrors in modern reality that don’t require monsters and boogeymen.\u00a0\u00a0 When combined, child abduction and fear of the unknown are two of the most effective ones.\u00a0 In Gemma Amor’s quick 120 page novella, she uses<\/p>\n

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