Night Terror
Bleak Haven #2
by Vincent Ralph

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: YA paranormal horror

The town of Bleak Haven has had more than its share of serial killers, almost as if it’s under a curse. Though it’s been around 18 years since the last murders, the town still hosts remembrance ceremonies every 3 months. Some of the citizens think it’s time to move on, so they seek out the fabled Burning Book to try to convince everyone that this particular urban legend is nothing more than a fairy tale. But what will they do if it turns out that the book has powers they can’t imagine?

After enjoying the previous book in this series, which is a straight-up slasher story, I was not expecting the follow-up (which is set in the 80s, 40+ years before the first book) to involve supernatural elements. The official synopsis does hint at that, but I wasn’t sure what to expect exactly and simply wanted to read more about this town that has such a bloody history. I’m not a big fan of the zombie genre, and that’s all this basically is. There’s very little in the way of a plot, at least a plot that has any kind of cohesion, and the book is mostly just teenagers running from undead monsters and gruesome death scenes. By the end of the book, I still didn’t really understand much about the origins of the Burning Book or the legend surrounding it, if the book had anything to do with serial killers that came after the first ones in Bleak Haven, or any explanation for other supernatural elements. I’m left saying the same thing that I said in my review of the previous book—hopefully more explanation will come in later books in the series.

The main character was really hard to get a read on—his motivation for fighting, or at least not running away, seems to change randomly. Maybe that just means he’s confused, lying to himself, or even keeping things from the reader, but it mostly just left me feeling completely disconnected from him. Other characters weren’t much better in that regard. Also, I’ve read other reviews that talk about the 80s vibe in this book, even to the degree that the book relies too much on that vibe and not enough on the story itself, but I didn’t really get much nostalgia from this book at all. Other than Blockbuster and cassette tapes being mentioned, I don’t know where the 80s references really were. Not that I need them, but I actually did forget now and then that this book took place around 40 years ago.

There’s no mystery here, no big reveal. It’s really just violence and survival. There is a little bit of language, including the f-word several times, but not nearly as much as I’ve read in other books in the same genre. And there is no sexual content. But there is a lot of pus, bile, and blood. People who enjoy zombie stories and gory death scenes (in the teen/YA age range), and don’t mind there not being much plot might enjoy this book. At this point, I can’t really say whether this book is important to the rest of the series or not, so I can’t even say if it’s necessary to read it if you read the rest. I do plan to read the last 2 books, though, so maybe I’ll come back and edit this review later with more info about that.

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