Not Quite What It Seems

November 3, 2008by Jim Zoetewey

Catharsis turns out to be a different sort of story underneath than it appears to be on the surface.

While it begins feeling a little bit like a conventional horror story, it ends up concentrating on the main character’s attempt to come to grips with events in her past.

I think that I can say that without blowing the story. I’m not going to go into too much detail about it though.

Still, I do feel like I should say a little more than that. The audience that probably goes for situations like (A) a bunch of people who know each other via the internet meet for the first time and end up in a deserted town, making self-aware and amusing comments about what people should and shouldn’t do in horror movies. . . . is different from the audience that goes for (B) character based stories in which the main character comes to an understanding about themselves and their life while experiencing events that the audience doesn’t immediately identify as imagined.

Both audiences can come to this story and enjoy it, but it helps to be at least slightly partial to the other sort to do so.

What makes it possible is a strong narrative focus on the search for the main character’s sister. That can lead a person from one sort of story to another without the reader realizing that they’ve moved.

After making so many general comments on the story’s genre and it’s potential audience, I feel as if I should comment on such issues as character and writing style and so on.

Except . . . 

Except I really don’t have anything to say about them. The characterization felt real enough to me that I never questioned it. The writing is skilled enough that I didn’t run across anything that knocked me out of the story.

That’s a good thing.

So overall, the story is worth reading.

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