I took a little longer to get back into doing reviews that I had actually planned on, but at least I am back. I have been watching action movies of late, which I don't review all that often. I did leave a small review of Warcraft on Letterboxd if you happen to follow me there. I did manage to get another book done this last Friday, so I thought I would get the review done before moving on to the rest of the Nightmare series. We Are Monsters by Brian Kirk took me a good while to get through it. The print was a little small and I read slowly anyway, so the small print just makes me take that much longer. Plus, with this story dealing with schizophrenia, there were a few words I didn't know. I'm not ashamed to admit that!
Welcome to the Sugar Hill mental hospital. Eli is your head doctor there who feels he is on his way out. Eli believes that people in his hospital deserve as much respect as possible and he doesn't like to use medicine in order to treat mental illnesses. While his hospital is known for treated people and keeping them treated, Eli feels that the hospital's board members would like to see him step down. His protege Alex feels he is ready to take Eli's place and has been working on something that he believes will cure mental illness for good. He hasn't been able to get the formula down to work the way he wants it to, so no one wants to buy it. Needing money, he decides to refine the formula and treat his own brother without anyone knowing. It goes well for his brother, whom even Eli thinks is a changed man, but Alex doesn't know there is a side effect of the drug. When pushed, he decides to treat Crosby, the newest person to be admitted to the hospital who killed a group of people because he believed them to be demons. Things are about to get very bad in Sugar Hill.
This is my first time reading anything by Brian Kirk. In fact, this is his first novel and as far as I can tell his only novel so far. It is a pretty good first novel and it had some nice surprises in it. The story is a bit slow at first as we get to know the characters, One thing I can say for Kirk is that he gives his characters a lot of attention. There is a lot of background for the main three characters in Eli, Alex, and Angela. In case you are wondering, Angela acts as the social services person at the hospital. Kirk dips into their past as well as their present-day problems. He manages to keep it all pretty interesting, but it would have been nice if he had gotten to the last part of his book a little quicker at the same time. Kirk drops hints as to where the story is leading up, but it was still a surprise once this does happen. I was wondering why there was so much attention to the lives of the three main characters.
Out of the three characters that we learn the most about, Eli gets the most attention. Going back to when he was a doctor in the Vietnam war and when he fell in love with a patient. While Kirk actually used the words "fell hard" I didn't really get that impression from that storyline. It was obvious that Eli cared for her a lot at the time, but I didn't feel that he actually fell in love with her. Perhaps he did with the memory of her though. We also learn about the woman who almost became his wife. Eli's present has to do with knowing he is on his way out of the hospital and feeling like he is losing control of his own mind. For Alex, we learn a bit about his relationship with his brother, but it mostly centers on his dad. Alex is striving for approval from his dad, who likes his first son a lot more for being a star athlete. For his present problems, they have to do a little with his wife but they are mostly centered on money. Alex is a lot of trouble when it comes to money. We don't learn about Angela all the much until the final act of the story. What we learn about her before the final act is that while she appears to be your normal person at work, she is very wild outside of work and tends to have one night stands.
This was all a wonderful setup, even if it did take a while to get through it all. My big worry was, will it all pay off? It did, but it didn't at the same time. The final act kicks off in a great way. It changes the tone of the book completely as six characters get trapped inside their own heads. They can all apparently find their way back out, but things have changed because of Crosby. While we learn what is going on inside of Eli's head, it is really Alex and Angela that take center stage at this point. I didn't completely mind this, especially learning more about Angela, but I was disappointed by not getting to know how Eli eventually joins back up with the two. I was also disappointed that Crosby didn't take more of a center stage during this as well. He shows up now and then, and we do learn more about him, but I would have liked to have seen more. Kirk doesn't seem to get into much detail as to why some things happen during this final act, which is something else I found to be a bit disappointing as well.
We Are Monsters was a cool book. I enjoyed it a lot even though it was a bit of a slow read for me. After reading some other reviews for it, after reading it, of course, I see that most people seemed to have liked the book until the final act. They didn't care for the change of tone, as it made it feel like a completely different book. I admit I was very surprised by the shift in tone, but I embraced it and went with it. A lot of the things I didn't like about the last act I felt could have worked out better if Kirk had just explained why they were happening a little better than he did. In some cases, he didn't seem to bother to even try, but then again, that may not have been a completely bad thing. If you give We Are Monsters a try, which you can still order the paperback on Amazon as of this writing, it will really depend on how well you take to the last act of the book. Most seem to either love or hate the story based on the last act. For me, I thought We Are Monsters was going to be a great book but fell short of that by the end. It is still worth the time to give a try though, so I hope some of you do.
3 out of 5 I don't think I want to be trapped with my demons
Welcome to the Sugar Hill mental hospital. Eli is your head doctor there who feels he is on his way out. Eli believes that people in his hospital deserve as much respect as possible and he doesn't like to use medicine in order to treat mental illnesses. While his hospital is known for treated people and keeping them treated, Eli feels that the hospital's board members would like to see him step down. His protege Alex feels he is ready to take Eli's place and has been working on something that he believes will cure mental illness for good. He hasn't been able to get the formula down to work the way he wants it to, so no one wants to buy it. Needing money, he decides to refine the formula and treat his own brother without anyone knowing. It goes well for his brother, whom even Eli thinks is a changed man, but Alex doesn't know there is a side effect of the drug. When pushed, he decides to treat Crosby, the newest person to be admitted to the hospital who killed a group of people because he believed them to be demons. Things are about to get very bad in Sugar Hill.
This is my first time reading anything by Brian Kirk. In fact, this is his first novel and as far as I can tell his only novel so far. It is a pretty good first novel and it had some nice surprises in it. The story is a bit slow at first as we get to know the characters, One thing I can say for Kirk is that he gives his characters a lot of attention. There is a lot of background for the main three characters in Eli, Alex, and Angela. In case you are wondering, Angela acts as the social services person at the hospital. Kirk dips into their past as well as their present-day problems. He manages to keep it all pretty interesting, but it would have been nice if he had gotten to the last part of his book a little quicker at the same time. Kirk drops hints as to where the story is leading up, but it was still a surprise once this does happen. I was wondering why there was so much attention to the lives of the three main characters.
Out of the three characters that we learn the most about, Eli gets the most attention. Going back to when he was a doctor in the Vietnam war and when he fell in love with a patient. While Kirk actually used the words "fell hard" I didn't really get that impression from that storyline. It was obvious that Eli cared for her a lot at the time, but I didn't feel that he actually fell in love with her. Perhaps he did with the memory of her though. We also learn about the woman who almost became his wife. Eli's present has to do with knowing he is on his way out of the hospital and feeling like he is losing control of his own mind. For Alex, we learn a bit about his relationship with his brother, but it mostly centers on his dad. Alex is striving for approval from his dad, who likes his first son a lot more for being a star athlete. For his present problems, they have to do a little with his wife but they are mostly centered on money. Alex is a lot of trouble when it comes to money. We don't learn about Angela all the much until the final act of the story. What we learn about her before the final act is that while she appears to be your normal person at work, she is very wild outside of work and tends to have one night stands.
This was all a wonderful setup, even if it did take a while to get through it all. My big worry was, will it all pay off? It did, but it didn't at the same time. The final act kicks off in a great way. It changes the tone of the book completely as six characters get trapped inside their own heads. They can all apparently find their way back out, but things have changed because of Crosby. While we learn what is going on inside of Eli's head, it is really Alex and Angela that take center stage at this point. I didn't completely mind this, especially learning more about Angela, but I was disappointed by not getting to know how Eli eventually joins back up with the two. I was also disappointed that Crosby didn't take more of a center stage during this as well. He shows up now and then, and we do learn more about him, but I would have liked to have seen more. Kirk doesn't seem to get into much detail as to why some things happen during this final act, which is something else I found to be a bit disappointing as well.
We Are Monsters was a cool book. I enjoyed it a lot even though it was a bit of a slow read for me. After reading some other reviews for it, after reading it, of course, I see that most people seemed to have liked the book until the final act. They didn't care for the change of tone, as it made it feel like a completely different book. I admit I was very surprised by the shift in tone, but I embraced it and went with it. A lot of the things I didn't like about the last act I felt could have worked out better if Kirk had just explained why they were happening a little better than he did. In some cases, he didn't seem to bother to even try, but then again, that may not have been a completely bad thing. If you give We Are Monsters a try, which you can still order the paperback on Amazon as of this writing, it will really depend on how well you take to the last act of the book. Most seem to either love or hate the story based on the last act. For me, I thought We Are Monsters was going to be a great book but fell short of that by the end. It is still worth the time to give a try though, so I hope some of you do.
3 out of 5 I don't think I want to be trapped with my demons
