Jason S. Hornsby

Unlikely to become a best seller, but a decent fun read. Lots of questions, lots of trash plot line, some amazing prose. a fair amount of nearly putting it down and moving on.

Central story
Layne and Tara come home from teaching ESL in China for a year, to attend the funeral of Layne's estranged father. Overnight, the sleepy hometown becomes a bloodbath. Beginnning at 11:23 am and repeating at each consecutive 11:23, mass portions of the population go ape shit and start mass killing. The government has quarantined them. The outside world believes that smallpox is rampant.

Layne and Tara work to escape the town and ensure their survival as well as the global knowledge of what their town went through.

Zombies? No.. Insanity? Maybe.. Alternate dimensions? Mind control? Ghosts? Petro chemical allergies? God? Cost of tea in china? Who the heck knows what this is about.

It is reasonably priced ($6) but I have seen it in free preview and $1 sales as well. It is a good spend for a couple hours of quick paced fiction, but don't get it with the expectation of a story that has real staying power. Pick it up for some seriously brilliant passages intermixed with confusing blah blah. Pick it up for some pulp fiction dawn of the dead cross genre joy, try to ignore the Seinfeld episodes that break up the scenes. There is some serious gore in a few scenes.. Serious. Not for the squeamish.

More review? Yeah, I don't really know what to tell you. It was wordy. There were vast section of vivid and amazing prose. There was also a lot of confusion and lofty 'coffee shop' drivel. Red herrings and dead ends in the plot line also work well/pissed me off for seeming to wasting time.… (altro)

This book should have been a quick, enjoyable read, but it ended up feeling like work. Hornsby takes an interesting horror concept and fills it with overwritten prose that bogs down the narrative. To be fair, I should sprinkle my review with examples such as "mendacious hazel eyes" and ice that crinkles and collapes into the melted abyss. But in reality, I was probably not predisposed to like this horror novel. I enjoy a good tale of terror as much as the next reader, but I also appreciate a well-written book, and I wish this book had been both.… (altro)

Every Sigh, The End is easily one of the best modern novels I have read in a long, long time. The gripping storyline, amazing character development, and not-so-thinly-veiled critique on modern society as a whole mesh together well with lots and lots of flesh-eating zombies, conspiracy theories, and lots of graphic violence. Normally I find the whole metaphorical use of zombies played out and overdone, however Jason Hornsby manages to put a great spin on the whole thing, without even introducing zombies into the novel until over halfway through.

The book starts out just completely depressing with a protagonist so ignorant you just want him to quit giving his cynical narration on everything; however, as the novel progresses, you really begin to pity and want to help this poor, broken soul.

I loved this book from beginning to end, and found it very compelling. I've lent it to every friend of mine who loves books, and each one has found the novel entertaining and insightful, as well as somewhat puzzling. When my list friend finishes reading it, I am definitely giving it a second go in hopes of figuring out some of the missing pieces.

However, that is where my one problem with the book lies. I'll admit I am not the quickest on the draw, so perhaps I missed something (which I am hoping to catch my second time through) but the book just seemed to end abruptly, leaving a lot of questions up in the air for the reader to piece together with very little rhyme or reason. The build-up was very intense and the deeper they went down the rabbit hole, the more intriguing and mysterious things became, but the whole wrap-up just seemed to fall flat, leaving a bunch of puzzle pieces on the floor for the reader to pick up, only to find 200 pieces are missing. Normally that would drive me up the wall, but I'm almost certain that Hornsby intended to do this, in hopes of conveying his message in his book.

This book is trying to tell me something very, very important. What it is, however, I am not quite sure but enjoy finding out.… (altro)