Survivor Paperback – September 17, 2011

This book is one of the most graphic, nightmare inducing books I have ever read, and while the story flounders at the end, that first chapter will haunt you and make you sick, and the rest of the book does the same. If you like extreme horror (this book was the first of its kind I have read), this is in the canon. If you can't stomach vicious, violent description, avoid at all costs.

Part police procedural, this tale is as engrossing as it is disturbing. It is a great read so long as you can stomach the content!

This is by far the most disturbing, graphic, risk-taking novel I've ever read inmy life. I've read everything by Stephen King, nearly everything by Dean Koontz,and then books by brutal horror authors like Bentley Little, James Herbert, RichardLaymon, Jack Ketchum, and Thomas Tessier, and nothing I've read by them can comeclose to this masterpiece of sick twisted violence. The novel is about a couple whois going on vacation. The husband is framed for a minor crime so that the wife willbe available for kidnapping. Once she is taken, she is told all about the underworldof pornography. Soon, she will be a star in a snuff film in which she will be rapedand tortured to death by someone called Animal. The rest you can read for yourself.This book is not for everyone. Within the first ten pages, there is a girl on girlsex scene that concludes with one girl sucking out the other's eyeball. Later, thereis a baby involved: something that I will never ever forget. It's bloody, it's fast-paced,and it's terrifying because there is nothing supernatural about this. The closestbook I can relate it to is The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum, but I found this onefar more disturbing. Gonzalez fills it with research about snuff films and how theyare made and sold and how the government has such a hard time tracking them down.For a while, this book has the feel of a cheap horror film like The Hills Have Eyesor Hostile, but the characters are believable and the novel goes from pure violenthorror to more suspense and that is what brought my already overwhelming respectfor the book and it's author to even greater heights. Read this book if you are ahorror fan, but it's unlike anything I've ever read before and once again, not foreveryone.

In its first half, "Survivor" uses the universal fear of a woman kidnapped and the subversive, taboo aura of snuff films to great effect. Our main character, Lisa, is separated from her husband in an unlikely ruse. Her kidnapper takes her to a cabin with the intent of filming her being raped and killed. Her life is briefly spared when an innocent walks in on the scene and the men involved -- her kidnapper, a cameraman and the "performer," a guy who calls himself Animal -- make a movie with her first.This opening sequence is scary, horrific and suspenseful. And what Lisa does to get out of this horrible situation is just as shocking.We get wrapped up in Lisa's survival, the stunning thing she does to save her own life, and her sweaty life-or-death predicament. But when it's over the novel jogs in place for a long time. Only to kick back into action with more violence that feels utterly empty.Lisa's turmoil is affecting, but it never goes beyond the obvious weeping, and that's a big problem with the book -- we never get a glimpse into any of the characters. We never learn why people want to watch snuff films, and we never get to know why people get off on hurting others. Animal rambles on for ten pages, but it felt like a lame explanation. If you're going to tackle this subject, you have to come up with something better than the old "power trip" line of thought.The book gets a little wacky in the end, as a cartoonish character enters the scene and does something fairly impossible, and overall where this novel ends up is rather unsatisfying and even a little boring.I really wish Gonzalez had stayed away from the obvious course this book takes. Because its first third is so good -- a matter-of-factly terrifying situation you dread but can't stop reading that ends with a moral twist that makes you question what you would do in the same circumstances -- and then just sort of fades into the oblivion of cliches and bad revenge movies.Gonzalez had a lot he could have explored in this novel, but in the end "Survivor" doesn't live up to the promise of its opening.

La historia está buena, el libro tiene algunos errores, como dos capitulos num 13, al final le cambian los apellidos a los personajes, pero aun así lo recomiendo

If you like hardcore books!This is for you!Very graphic, intense and gory.Not for everyone...I did love it :)

I must say, the story was better than I expected. A lot of the reviews talked about how graphic it was but that was all rather short lived, the really nasty bits were more what was talked about by the perpetrators in memories and tales. Is it the worst book I've read? It's up there with Edward Lee's "Pig" (that story rules) and a few others of similar hardcore nature but I'm not sure if it's the most brutal, maybe if it had gone a tad further it would have been. Still, I've been reading horror for so long now that I'm pretty desensitized so I suppose to your average Joe this would be some pretty sick stuff. A good page turner, some great twists, likable characters, great villains and pretty good gore. 4/5 for a job well done.

Great book very descriptive absolutely loved it, will definitely be buying and reading his other books!!!!!!so very happy with this book

Love this book-super dark and gory. Not for the faint of heart.