Review of Inbred!
Posted: 27 Mar 2022, 05:57
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Inbred!" by Andrew Toth.]
Inbred! by Andrew Toth sounded, at first, like it might be a campy horror novel about a town twisted into dangerous freaks due to familial inbreeding. An exclamation point in the title is a device rarely used by authors, and it suggested to me something uncaged and bloodthirsty; I imagined a feast of chaotic mayhem at the hands of the townsfolk of Woolen in the Australian bush. Alas, my hopes were ultimately dashed.
In his teens, Tom Paxton was class captain at Waverley College and voted most likely to succeed in life. However, a destructive urge lurks inside Tom. After marrying his secretary, Sara, they buy a farm together in the Woolen Valley, thirty minutes from the inbred town of Woolen. Suffering numerous setbacks, including a bushfire, Tom loses his cool at one of the inbred "rednecks" at a local bar. He then begins a self-destructive spree, fighting groups of "inbreds" at every opportunity. His marriage ends in divorce, and Tom starts a sales job selling fitness machines. Meanwhile, he considers a major lifestyle change and joins the Buddhist temple just outside of Woolen. Unfortunately, the inbreds of Woolen don't like the monks, and trouble is brewing...
I liked Toth's conversational writing style, which was easy to read. However, it did occasionally feature a more intellectual word that seemed out of place, such as: "How else will you understand the tragedy that eventuated?" I think "came later" or similar would be better than "eventuated". The story did hold my interest throughout, even during Tom's period as a salesman. I also found Tom to be a realistic character, with real problems and a life that had not worked out to plan. Toth's character descriptions were often neat; for example: "balding, overweight, small close-set eyes peering out from within rolls of fat." Sections from the viewpoint of one of the inbreds felt accurate, with intentional errors such as "boodhist" for "Buddhist" and "that was the cake on the icing" neatly showing the naivety of the character.
The book needed a professional edit in places; for example: "...their monastery was in fact burnt down to the ground on two such occasions" would be more succinct as "...their monastery was in fact burnt to the ground on two occasions." The word "just" was noticeably used four times in the same paragraph on page 82, and three uses of "then" in the same paragraph late in the book could all have been deleted without loss of meaning. There were also other minor errors, such as missing punctuation or occasional incorrect tense.
Unfortunately, I also thought this book lacked somewhat in the action promised by the author blurb. A large part of the narrative was occupied with two salespeople on a relatively uneventful sales trip and the mastering of Buddhist meditation. The climactic scene also seemed a little simple, straightforward, and ended too quickly for my liking. I had been hoping for an apocalyptic confrontation between the monks and the inbreds, but was left a little disappointed. For these reasons, I rate Inbred! 2 out of 4 stars, with one star removed for the editing and one for the lack of real, gutsy action. I would recommend it to adult readers who are happy with relatively little action in their action novels. It contains profanity and explicit sex scenes, so is best suited to a mature audience.
******
Inbred!
View: on Bookshelves
Inbred! by Andrew Toth sounded, at first, like it might be a campy horror novel about a town twisted into dangerous freaks due to familial inbreeding. An exclamation point in the title is a device rarely used by authors, and it suggested to me something uncaged and bloodthirsty; I imagined a feast of chaotic mayhem at the hands of the townsfolk of Woolen in the Australian bush. Alas, my hopes were ultimately dashed.
In his teens, Tom Paxton was class captain at Waverley College and voted most likely to succeed in life. However, a destructive urge lurks inside Tom. After marrying his secretary, Sara, they buy a farm together in the Woolen Valley, thirty minutes from the inbred town of Woolen. Suffering numerous setbacks, including a bushfire, Tom loses his cool at one of the inbred "rednecks" at a local bar. He then begins a self-destructive spree, fighting groups of "inbreds" at every opportunity. His marriage ends in divorce, and Tom starts a sales job selling fitness machines. Meanwhile, he considers a major lifestyle change and joins the Buddhist temple just outside of Woolen. Unfortunately, the inbreds of Woolen don't like the monks, and trouble is brewing...
I liked Toth's conversational writing style, which was easy to read. However, it did occasionally feature a more intellectual word that seemed out of place, such as: "How else will you understand the tragedy that eventuated?" I think "came later" or similar would be better than "eventuated". The story did hold my interest throughout, even during Tom's period as a salesman. I also found Tom to be a realistic character, with real problems and a life that had not worked out to plan. Toth's character descriptions were often neat; for example: "balding, overweight, small close-set eyes peering out from within rolls of fat." Sections from the viewpoint of one of the inbreds felt accurate, with intentional errors such as "boodhist" for "Buddhist" and "that was the cake on the icing" neatly showing the naivety of the character.
The book needed a professional edit in places; for example: "...their monastery was in fact burnt down to the ground on two such occasions" would be more succinct as "...their monastery was in fact burnt to the ground on two occasions." The word "just" was noticeably used four times in the same paragraph on page 82, and three uses of "then" in the same paragraph late in the book could all have been deleted without loss of meaning. There were also other minor errors, such as missing punctuation or occasional incorrect tense.
Unfortunately, I also thought this book lacked somewhat in the action promised by the author blurb. A large part of the narrative was occupied with two salespeople on a relatively uneventful sales trip and the mastering of Buddhist meditation. The climactic scene also seemed a little simple, straightforward, and ended too quickly for my liking. I had been hoping for an apocalyptic confrontation between the monks and the inbreds, but was left a little disappointed. For these reasons, I rate Inbred! 2 out of 4 stars, with one star removed for the editing and one for the lack of real, gutsy action. I would recommend it to adult readers who are happy with relatively little action in their action novels. It contains profanity and explicit sex scenes, so is best suited to a mature audience.
******
Inbred!
View: on Bookshelves