Review by KaylaA -- Something by Shelby Lamb

[KaylaA]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Something" by Shelby Lamb.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Something by Shelby Lamb is a young adult novel with some aspects of horror and fantasy. It follows a young girl named Aubrey who picked up a magical book in a second hand store. Anyone who reads this magical book (even a few words from it) are now able to see countless demonic creatures who terrorizes Aubrey and other characters that somehow came into contact with the book. This story follows the aftermath of countless horrors following the first sighting of these creatures. From brutal bug bites to a Slender man lookalike, there is some creature in there that will make you cringe.

I cannot say that I particularly enjoyed the novel as much as I wanted to. I say I wanted to enjoy the novel because the story line was interesting and has potential to be better than it is. I kept reading because I was curious as to what happens next. With that said, the pacing of the novel seemed off. Sometimes, a scene dragged on and did not make much of an impact to the overall story. One could argue that it was for characterization, but some of the dragged on scenes could be broken up and snuck into preexisting scenes, creating a more powerful flow.

A big issue that I had was that I was not drawn to some of the characters as much as I should have been. Bella was unrealistically beautiful and perfect. Everything was too easy for her and she had little to no obstacles. The only obstacle that she had was the horrors that were happening to her because of that book. This made it difficult to relate to her and I did not care about what she was going through.

Another thing that I had problems with was that I could not quite figure out what the target audience was. It is geared towards young adults, but some of the content is too sexually explicit to belong in that category. The subject matter would be best geared towards young adults since the main characters are all in their teens. Toning down the sexual explicitness would solve this problem.

I would rate this book 2 out of 4 stars because even though it had many points that need to be worked on, the story line was enough to keep me reading. I wanted to know what horrors will happen next and why. You will enjoy this novel if you enjoy reading horror and dark fantasy. You may find yourself trying to get through a particular scene, but in the end, there is always a payoff that keeps the story moving forward.

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Something
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