Dweller

This book was..... I don't even know what it was. It was brilliant, it was gripping, it was heartbreaking, it was creepy, it was .... it was a heartbreaking horror!! Unlike anything I've read in a long time!!Ok, so we have a Toby, who is 8 and is being badly bullied. He doesn't really have any friends and is a loner, as such. He goes into the forest behind his house and ventures further than he ever went before. He finds a monster, there isn't any other word to describe the hairy thing that has lots of teeth and claws! He runs home screaming but his parents think it's his imagination. Toby thinks that maybe it was and ventures back in there. Again he sees the same monster but this time Toby tries to talk to it. What follows is a story of a boy and his best friend Owen. the monster who lives in the woods.As I said, this book is unlike anything I've read before. While it does have gorey bits, I mean Owen is a monster and it does get bloody at times, this isn't just a horror story. This follows Toby from when he first meets Owen, and tells the story of his lifetime, through all the bad and some good times. From the younger Toby and the bullies he faces, to Toby's first love, to the older Toby and the way his life turned out, through it all we follow his friendship with Owen and the impact it has on him and others.This was an engrossing and addicting read and one I devoured! I had so many emotions whilst reading, my heart broke for both Toby and Owen so many times! How can an author make you feel so much for these characters!!! Well, this author certainly can. He doesn't sugarcoat anything, yet you find yourself rooting for Toby and Owen and wanting them to be Ok. I want to get into the story but I really don't want to spoil anything for you!!! This book will gobble you up and spit you out as a sniveling mess. I can not recommend it enough!!!Go grab this book right now and find out what happens when your best friend is a monster!This isn't the first book narrated by Scott Thomas that I've listened to, nor will it be my last. He is phenomenal! He portrays Toby perfectly and even though Owen doesn't really talk, he still manages to bring him across brilliantly too. I was enthralled while listening and didn't want it to end. A narrator I can highly recommend.*I received this for free but voluntarily reviewed it. This in no way affected nor influenced my thoughts.*

Wow. This is the 6th book I've read by this author and that's my response every time I finish one. But this was a different kind of wow. I normally enjoy the humor in Strand's stories the most, and Dweller had some humorous moments for sure- but it wasn't a comedy. A part of me wondered if I'd enjoy the non funny just as much. And I might just have fallen a little more in love with Strand's writing with Dweller. I couldn't put this book down. Was up 'til 2am reading. During the last few pages, I read with one eye because I was reading through tears, and I may have called the author a very bad name- one of which I will not repeat in my review, LOL. But I will be adding Dweller to my paperback bookshelf.

The premise of Jeff Strand's "Dweller" is a bit like a darker version of ET, if ET had chosen to stay on earth. It starts out with "Owen" (the monster) at a young age losing his parents to human hunters retaliating for their murderous rampage. Owen bumps into Toby, a young boy who lives near the woods. Later on, as a teenager, Toby bumps into Owen again, and is spared by the monster, who remembers meeting him before. Toby begins to visit Owen regularly, teaching him sign language so that the two can communicate. As Toby grows into a young adult, then an adult, then an older man, Owen is there by his side, giving him support.Admittedly, one might be shocked that, as they read, Owen takes a backstage for much of the book. So much time is spent on Toby's personal problems and life events, many of which aren't even directly related to Owen in any way. Several chapters are basically: "Toby experiences something; Toby experiences something else; Toby opines about the experiences to Owen." Owen gets so detached that I seriously began to wonder if Owen wasn't just a figment of Toby's imagination. I might contrast this with Kristopher Rufty's "Pillow Face," which involved a boy befriending a deformed maniac, and yet managed to keep the titular killer relevant to the events in the little boy's life.This is not to say that Owen takes a back step for the ENTIRE book; indeed, there are quite a few sections, especially near the end, where Owen becomes VERY relevant to Toby's life - and that leads me to another interesting bit about my reading. Basically, some sections of the book become very episodic, and seem more like tiny bits of filler. You know how Kurt Vonnegut would write a lot of books with little snippets from the main character's life? (Eg., "Slaughterhouse Five," "Hocus Pocus," etc.) This book reads a lot like that. You'll have a long, detailed narrative of something in Toby's life, then after that story arc is done, it'll go into more snippets, until the next story arc picks up. It feels like Jeff Strand wasn't sure how to handle the moments in between. Again, because little of this affects Owen, it felt like he was detached from the story. There were a few times where I almost forgot this story had a killer bigfoot-like thing in it.This is not to say the book is terrible. The dark humor is fitting and consistent, and you do feel bad for Owen and Toby at times. When the story does take a turn, it turns enough to keep you interested. It's just that, at times, the narrative feels a tad bit dragged out. That being said, if you're already a Jeff Strand fan, or you want a monster story that's a little bit lighter than what's on the market, this will probably be your cup of tea.

I really liked this book, it brings something new to the table in a genre like this. To follow Toby from he is a small kid to a grownup while he is developing friendship with the monster deep in the local woods is a great ride, you might consider the story to have some logical flaws if you don't accept Toby isnt quite right in the head from the start, some scenes are very bissare and his choises and morality wouldnt come from a healty mind but it is well written. It isn't a happy story and if you like happy fairytale endings this isn't a book for you, in a way it reminds me of a Stephen Kings novel with it's dark and gloomy twists. The whole plot focuses on the relationship between the boy/man and you never get told what the monster is but i guess from the description it is some kind of unknown primate or Bigfoot relative, i recommend the book, i was close to give it 5 stars but it is close