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To get the technical stuff out of the way, I won a free ARC through the GoodReads First Reads giveaways.

Many years ago I read everything Koontz had written, but fell away from reading the horror genre in general well over a decade ago. I remember that I had always liked his writing style for the genre, but again, it has been a long time since I've picked up anything by him. When I read the synopsis in the giveaways I decided to enter to win it as it sounded like an unusual read.

An unusual read it certainly was. I have never read anything remotely like it, and I have to say this is a good thing. I can't seem to find a good way to sum the book, or my feelings about it up. Until 3/4 of the way through I can't imagine what possibly could be wrong with the narrator and his "father" that they would bring out so much hate in the human race, and when I did find out I was even more astounded...and it may have changed my outlook on humanity. Sounds melodramatic, but this is a story that will certainly make you think about the world we live in and the creatures which inhabit it - and about what kind of end we are headed toward.

Definitely a poetically written book, and I was mildly surprised by the number of words in the book that I was not familiar with. I consider myself to have a pretty vast vocabulary, and consider my husband my equal in this area, but there was quite a list of words we were not familiar with. For geeks like us, this is a good thing.

Bonus points for making marionettes even creepier than I have always thought them to be. Not a small feat. I know most people find clowns make their skin crawl, and while I can't say I've ever been particularly fond of clowns, marionettes have always made them look like teddy bears in comparison. Koontz' portrayal of the ones in this book remind us of his background in the horror genre.

I can't really put my finger on what exactly drew me to this book, as it is not really something in retrospect I could see myself picking out, but I am glad that it did. As voracious a reader as I am, it is not often that a book really creeps into my soul the way this one did, and certainly rare for one to leave me pondering the state of the universe the way this one has.

Though I realize this is a new direction for this "old" author, I am feeling inclined to revisit the entire body of his work after this read. I will certainly be looking forward to what comes after this.