The White Devil by Justin Evans

I started book collecting and reading with R.L. Stine.  I am a sucker for horror literature. But genuinely, good books in this genre are quite harder to break. Reading horror books requires a very creative mind, the literature has to help mold that world with the reader. Otherwise it would just be words that fall short in gore and scare. This is where the visual aspects in movie are more appreciated.

From a girl trained to read RL Stine while I was a child, I think I can play horrific scenes in my head effortlessly. I rely on descriptions in horrors, hanging eeriness and fluidly written actions that charge the brain to visualize scenes effortlessly. “An angry hunched man chanes the boy” vs. “the hunched man picks up speed with arms stretched, tongue rolled out and eyes burning wild as he turns this chase into a delightful game of prey and hunted.” Good horror books need to have a good story and visually charged writing to compliment the horrific plot. A good plot with bad writing is a waste.

The White Devil by Justin Evans was a surprise pick from Fully Booked. I was caught up with the title and plot. An American teenager was sent to an old English Boarding school and then encounters a ghost that triggers unexplained deaths with series of students. This sounds your old school ghost horror with a detective taste. Let's give it a try.

Aside form the ghost, the plot has some aspects to offer like dealing with sexuality and bullies. The ghost here is a protective and revengeful homosexual by the way. But aside from the lush description of an old boarding school, which is not that hard to imagine, and the surprise encounters with a ghost in hidden rooms, I was not entirely captured by this book. I got lost in the detective parts, sleepy in some chapters and failed to understand the why's. Probably this is a gloomy horror targeted for youngsters, but it rarely made my skin crawl. If there’s one thing that gave an attempt for scare is when a sacrifice was done at the end of the story by the protagonist. But then again, it just falls short for me. I can read this in a deserted house or I can read this in a deserted English boarding school! It just didn’t cut out for me.

**This is a perfect case of a good synopsis, good 1st chapter and a kick-ass cover. 

amazon image