2 Stars
Six friends decide to camp on a scaffold mounted to the side of a cliff in order to study a new species of moss for a research thesis. Only, none of them seem to actually be friends. Or at the very least they all seem to assume the worst of each other in all circumstances. I think if I had to chose between them and the murderous moss, I’d rather spend my time with the moss.
Because that’s the horror part: the moss is sentient in some way and sabotages the group so it can eat them.
It’s multi-POV, so we have to go through the same disdain and jealousy again and again. The men all seem to hate each other, assuming the others want to steal their girlfriends or are chasing their romantic interests. To be fair, they’re right. Every character seems to be thinking about sex all the time. Even if they’re injured, even when the food is running low, even when they’re dying.
Some of it feels like the author wrote this book like some sort of paint-by-numbers project: everyone gets given a bit of a conflict in their past that they are still shaped by, but if you think there will be some great payoff from it in the end I’ll have to disappoint you.
There are gory injuries and creepy moments, but it was a slog to get to them in between yet another argument because someone assumed the worst of someone else’s actions, gazes lingering over bodies, and everyone running around like a headless chicken waiting for a rescue that they already explained is highly unlikely to ever happen.
At around the 80% point I actually found myself downloading one of those mindless mobile games because I was trying to avoid having to get back to this book.
Brooks once stated, that he became an author because he read a terrible book and figured, if that one managed to get published then it couldn’t be too difficult for him to do the same. It’s nice that he’s paying the favour forward because whatever you’re writing, The Elegance of Decay will do wonders for your self confidence.
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