Little Heaven

Product Information

Personal taste being what it is, and with mine being more capricious than most, I hope this won’t dissuade anyone from trying the book out for themselves if the description sounds like something you might enjoy. In the past, they’re hired by a woman to travel deep into the wilderness to Little Heaven, a community built by a religious movement similar to a cult, and maybe rescue her nephew. It says more than a little bit that it’s hard to know what Cutter’s most horrific creation is: the shapeshifting, surreal horrors in the woods, or the disturbed villains we keep seeing…or even our heroes themselves, whose lives of violence and brutality are part of their lives.

and so many of these elements really knocked my socks off when i was reading them, but when it came to the novel's supernatural bits, my brain just balked. Something that I found really interesting about this book was that it felt almost like a Western as well as a horror novel, and not just because it took place in the New Mexican desert. While this book is just under 500 pages, which isn’t terrible in terms of length, it felt much longer. But even if they don't, it is worth plowing on, because the good bits, which is most of this book, are so freakin' worth it. Not only do we have this cult, but we have some serious (supernatural) evil a-brewing and even though we know our “heroes” escape the 1965 fun time since the novel starts in present time (more or less), we have no idea how, why, or what.Cutter tends to be repetitive here – there are only so many times we can describe the same scene – and worse, he has a tendency to repeat the same scene while not explaining the scene.

Add that in with an ending that felt incredibly existential and nihilistic just for the sake of nihilism, and I closed the book and felt yucky on the inside. I'm enjoying the horror-related reviews this month, and, for some reason, only belatedly connected the fact that Halloween is approaching with (presumably) your choice of reading materials.I requested Cutter’s first big break novel, “The Troop”, but when I realized that it was a parasite story, I was an immediate NOPE and sent it back to the library and on to the next person. I'm wondering if that would be better to satisfy the mysterious, spooky religious cult craving instead. A lot of the material seemed extraneous and unnecessary, and a more directed storyline with one focus would’ve made for easier reading. More than that, Cutter follows his dark story to its logical conclusion, giving us darker deeds than even Pennywise managed, and making his heroes more complicit and less of a symbol of good.