Submitted by Censius t3_ybwz73 in books

If you enjoy Stephen King horror, I highly recommend "This Thing Between Us" by Gus Moreno. The world and characters has a similar authenticity to King's, but with a more 2nd/3rd generation Latin American bent instead of the 1960s New Englander vibe that we've been inundated with through King.

Briefly: our narrator, Thiago, is making some half-hearted gestures at moving on in life after the death of his wife. He's not all that dedicated to healing though, and some of his attempts to get away from fellow mourners could be interpreted as self-care or self-sabotage. But strange things are happening: his Siri device making orders and providing internet answers to questions he didn't ask. A strange monolith appearing in different places. Knocks on the walls.

The horror is more of a slow creep of something being increasingly "wrong". The cast is much smaller and more intimate than much of King's work, focusing mostly on our narrator. And the narrator, Thiago, is very refreshing. He's not in touch with his Mexican heritage or their brand of mysticism. He's not very educated, but is still pretty scientifically minded, making sensible hypotheses and seeing evidence to prove them one way or the other. Too often we get protagonists that either fully believe in the magic of their world to the point of naivete, or fully dismiss magic to the point of stupidity. Thiago wants to dismiss the supernatural, but can't ignore his eyes and ears.

Is it better than every King book I've read? Not really. It doesn't reach the same highs King occasionally does, but it never really has any lows, and it's a much more streamlined read than King has ever been. There's no fat, and I whole heartedly recommend it.

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Hamfiter t1_itjg0sk wrote

Thanks, just downloaded a sample

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ErisianMoon t1_itlfixe wrote

Sounds good, I'll put it on my good reads 'to read' list. Thanks for sharing!

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IndispensableNobody t1_itjkw8p wrote

I absolutely loved the first third of it, liked the second, and hated the final third. It started off so strong.

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Censius OP t1_itjlo83 wrote

I agree that the third act isn't as strong as the rest, but I still enjoyed it, even if it kinda went through a genre shift in the end

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