Hey look, it’s that book review I meant to write an actual week ago… Hm.
Title: Unbury Carol
Author: Josh Malerman
Genre(s): Western, Fantasy, Horror
Length: 367 pages
Published: April 10th, 2018
Rating: ★★★★★
I picked up Unbury Carol on a whim – I impulse buy books when stressed, you see – enticed by the cover, title, and the possibility of a weird western. I didn’t even read the synopsis till I was a chapter in and that was about the only real break I took in my reading. This story moves! And not in ways I expected.
Carol Evers hasn’t told many about her condition – a death-like coma that can last days. Her husband, Dwight, is counting on this. He plans to bury her alive. Too bad for him the outlaw James Moxie knows Carol’s secret too, and he’s coming to save his long lost love from her unnatural grave. That is, if he can survive The Trail and the bounty hunter Smoke hot on his heels.
- It’s the genre mashup you never knew you wanted. We got shootouts, saloons, an outlaw hero! With a healthy dose of make you squirm horror and even a smattering of steampunk. But it reads like a fairytale. I would have no problem believing the story of Carol and Moxie has been told around campfires and at bedtimes for years and years. It is Officially™ my favorite Sleeping Beauty retelling. (I never had a favorite Sleeping Beauty retelling to begin with, but…)
- Honestly, knowing the female lead was going to be in a coma for a good portion of the book made me, well, morbidly curious. How do you even tell a story when the titular character is in a coma? Was I about to be duped into somebody else’s story? I was here for Carol, darnit! Turned out, Carol’s chapters – her time in Howltown – were some of the most eerie and stressful parts of the book. And that is saying something considering the character Smoke! Carol might be down but she’s not out, and her struggles to break herself free of her coma turned out to be exactly what I wanted to read.
- Smoke is… A lot. And it’s a good thing! I’m not here for mollycoddled villains and I don’t think there’s any way a person in their right mind could think that way about the bounty hunter Smoke. This dude is a deliciously evil wildcard, to the point I genuinely feared Moxie would never make it to Carol in time.
- Lafayette and Dwight might be slightly outshined by the nightmare fuel that is Smoke, but they were quite the pair of conspirators. Dwight’s reasons for wanting to bury Carol are understandable and he’s just the right mix of competent and incompetent to make it stressful to read. Lafayette is straight up heartless and I loved her for it. Not your typical female villain.
- Moxie is the outlaw antihero I deserve. That’s it. That’s the review. No, but I love him. I love all of his doubts and worries. The guilt over Carol. If like me you have a weird soft spot for sad men trying to fix the mistakes of their past, this is probably your kind of book.
- I do have mixed feelings about the ending. No spoilers, but… In ways it was even better than expected, in others it went too quick. The book starts slow, but the tension and pacing ramp up more and more with every chapter. It went by fast! Which left me wishing for more of a breath at the end.
Unbury Carol by Josh Malerman was so wonderfully weird. It’s fast pace and distinctive characters made the reading feel more like a ride down The Trail. Truly a one of a kind experience.
*yes this was my first book review ever at all in my life, thank you for bearing with me while I try to figure how to even do this.
Anyone else read something wonderfully weird lately? Any plans to read Unbury Carol?
abruptly mystic 