Book Review: “Disorderly” by Jamye Karales

“Disorderly” by Jayme Karales (2013)

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Book Length: about 348 pages (electronic review copy)

Synopsis:

At what lengths will one man go to retain a second chance at life?

Colton Reznik, a man diagnosed with stage-4 brain cancer, had begun preparing for an untimely demise when fate shined its light upon him. After unexpectedly entering remission, he soon realizes that there are macabre repercussions that come with defying the odds and living well. To protect his livelihood, Colton must commit reprehensible acts of violence in order to satisfy whatever it is inside him that is keeping his tumor at bay. (Before Sunrise Press)

Review:

I didn’t know what to really expect from reading this novel at first. I didn’t think I fully grasped the concept, until I started to read the book. This was my first horror novel I’ve ever read before, so the whole experience was new to me.

The story line was unique. We have our main protagonist, Colton, who has stage 4 cancer and the sarcastic personality of House (even a little worse than that, but I couldn’t think of another pop culture figure to reference). He has a very cynical attitude of the world, owns a cat, and can’t stand his own friends or family; basically he kind of isolates himself from everyone physically and emotionally. He gets infected by this virus that sounds like something out of a zombie film or Resident Evil and from there on the story gets really intense. I won’t spoil it for you though.

Anyways, Colton’s sarcasm, for me was a little off-putting at first, but as time when on, I found it to be quite funny. He runs a blog in the novel called “Captain Cancer” detailing his sickness and gives snarky answers to people’s life questions when he answers e-mails. At times, the language is a little crude, but it’s nothing that I couldn’t handle. Also, a warning to readers: there is some intense graphic violence and gore throughout the novel; being that it’s a horror novel. This book might not be for you if you can’t handle that.

This is Karales’ debut novel and he did a good job. The writing is detailed and I liked how the chapters were dated over the three-year span the novel covered. The chapters jump from different months to years, so when you’re reading you should pay attention to the dates. Karales, definitely knows horror, and I appreciated this. I love the horror (genre) whether its books or films, when the creator doesn’t throw all the “scary” at you at one point in the story, and instead keeps you wondering when that first big moment is going to come. He starts out the novel calmly and halfway through the novel you can feel the tension and suspense rise as the occurrences start to pick up.

Final Verdict:

Enjoyed my first horror novel. It’s definitely not something I would have usually read, and like that I was put outside my “reading” boundaries. At times the intense graphic violent scenes bothered me a little bit. I’m used to horror movies and not books, so seeing and reading are two different experiences for me. Highly recommended for fans of horrors/thrillers/suspense novels. 3 1/2 out of 5.