Review: Lute

This book’s major failing is that the ending was tonally completely inconsistent with the entire rest of the book. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: endings are the trickiest part of a horror novel. My complaint is usually that they’re too confusing and hard to follow. However, the other problem that tends to crop up is an overly happy ending. A horror story cannot have a genuinely happy ending, in my opinion, to be really effective. Without spoiling the ending, I will say that it wrapped things up far too nicely to be a proper horror ending. It took this wonderful, atmospheric, horrifying story about the prices people are willing to pay for security, and then ended in a jarringly cheerful way. It’s like Hide, if Hide didn’t interrogate itself at all and assumed that yes, sacrificing people who can’t consent to preserve a traditional lifestyle is a normal and valid thing to do. 

This probably comes across as very harsh, and most of the book doesn’t deserve that; like I said, most of it is very effective in creating a sense of dread. It’s just the ending that ruined it a bit. One other slightly odd thing – the book is set presumably just a bit in the future, in a world where the US and the UK are at war. But because life on the island feels so very traditionally English, I read for about a chapter thinking it was set during one of the world wars and being incredibly confused why it was a problem for Nina to be American. I’m not really sure why this alternate reality was necessary, as it didn’t really seem to contribute anything other than proving how no one from the island died, maybe? 

Anyway – if you’re in the mood for something spooky that still has a very chill ending, and you aren’t constantly craving more darkness like my blackened heart, you might enjoy this one. Side note – the confession of love is straight out of Love, Actually. If you read it you’ll see what I mean.