Review: Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist

From the Publisher: 

From the author of the international and New York Times bestseller Let the Right One In (Let Me In) comes this stunning and terrifying book which begins when a man's six-year-old daughter vanishes.One ordinary winter afternoon on a snowy island, Anders and Cecilia take their six-year-old daughter Maja across the ice to visit the lighthouse in the middle of the frozen channel. While the couple explore the lighthouse, Maja disappears -- either into thin air or under thin ice -- leaving not even a footprint in the snow. Two years later, alone and more or less permanently drunk, Anders returns to the island to regroup. He slowly realises that people are not telling him all they know; even his own mother, it seems, is keeping secrets. What is happening in Domaro, and what power does the sea have over the town's inhabitants?

My Thoughts:

I absolutely loved Let the Right One In, Lindqvist's genre busting novel on vampires. It was creepy and scary and fantastic. When I received my advance copy of Harbor, it was all I could do to not dig into it right away. But I waited and finished some other books that were ahead of it in the queue. When I finally made it to this book, there was a surprise for me. It was awful.

That may sound harsh, but I have to be honest in my reviews. The book started out a little slow, at least that is the way I viewed it at the time. There were all kinds of seeds being planted that could possibly grow into the scary stuff I was expecting. But it was just not to be. The book rambled on and on until I reached the end and found myself asking Why did I read this?

It seemed that the author was trying to reach some kind of contractual word count with the way the plot jumped, skipped and burped along. The actual plot would not take more than a hundred pages to tell, so the rest of the book is filled with whatever story fragments came to the author's mind at that point. As a whole, the book does not feel finished to me.

I was ready to give this one a one out of five rating, but held off. Being honest, I did enjoy a bit of the back story concerning one of the characters. That was enough to pull it up to the two rating. Like I said earlier, I loved Let the Right One In, so it is not time to write this author off. I will just hope for a more compelling read next time around.

The Author:

John Ajvide Lindqvist is a Swedish horror author. His novel Let the Right One In was a success in both Sweden and abroad. Before becoming an author, Lindqvist worked as a magician and a stand-up comedian.

Rating: 2/5

Book Details:

Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Thomas Dunne Books
Publication Date: October 11, 2011

Disclaimer:

I received an advance copy of this book for review from the publisher.