I read a paperback version of The Loney.
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton General Division
Originally published: October 1st, 2014
Pages: 368 (paperback)
Audiobook length: 11 hrs and 15 mins.
Winner of the 2015 Costa First Novel Awards and The British Book Awards Book of the Year 2016.
Blurb by the Publisher:
“If it had another name, I never knew, but the locals called it the Loney – that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune where Hanny and I went every Easter time with Mummer, Farther, Mr and Mrs Belderboss and Father Wilfred, the parish priest.
It was impossible to truly know the place. It changed with each influx and retreat, and the neap tides would reveal the skeletons of those who thought they could escape its insidious currents. No one ever went near the water. No one apart from us, that is.
I suppose I always knew that what happened there wouldn’t stay hidden for ever, no matter how much I wanted it to. No matter how hard I tried to forget….”
☼
I'm far from saying that I disliked it, I just didn't love it.
My Thoughts:
I first saw The Loney going around on BookTube, but it didn’t really catch my interest until Stephen King mentioned it as great piece of fiction. And whenever Stephen King has mentioned books he enjoyed in the past, I’ve trusted his judgement and I’ve ended up loving them…. But not this time.
The Loney is a very eerie and interesting story in many ways. I really enjoyed the creepiness and the mystery that was in this story. The characters were also really well written. I enjoyed Hanny the most. Just to read about how this challenged boy had made his very own system and way of communicating with his brother, was so interesting. And I have to say that the boy’s mother was a character that I loved to hate at times. The way Hurley wrote her was brilliant!
Now, I’ve been saying only great things so far, so it’s time to touch upon why it didn’t live up to my expectations.
About halfway through the book it started to get a bit slow. I felt like it dragged a bit and started to lose its holding. Then when I came to the ending, I just felt like I had so many questions left that were unanswered.
I can appreciate stories that leaves me with questions, but in this one it kind of felt like an easy way out. Leave it up to the reader to completely imagine what this whole thing was about. I know some people really enjoy that, but for me that can be a major killer.
That being said, it could be that there were some hints in here that I didn’t catch, or that my mindset wasn’t in the right place for a story like this one. I’m far from saying that I disliked it, I just didn’t love it.
Beautiful writing, eerie scenery, dark and mysterious, but left me with a lot of unanswered questions.
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