Book Review: "Disturbance" by Jenna Clake

When I bought this book on my Kindle App, one of the ways in which it was described was 'atmospheric and witchy'. Now, I'm all up for a witchy book as long as there is some form of grounding in reality. For example: less superpowers, more 'Crucible'. However, I do like my fair share of dark, foreboding witchiness such as those we see in classics like Macbeth. I was initially thought that this book was going to be more folkish because of the fact I'd read there were rituals involved. But as I read on, I realised there was hardly anything witchy about the book at all, and definitely no atmosphere to speak of. Most of this book is pointless conversation with an uninteresting main character gaslighting herself.

A twenty-six-year old woman has had a break up with her abusive boyfriend - abuse which she still kind of blames on herself. We see vignettes of their relationship throughout the book which, I have to say is quite possibly the most annoying structure anyone could think of. You get going with one part of the story and then it changes to a whole different scene for no reason. I get that it is trying to make itself seem like flashbacks but when you are entrenched with two different sets of characters in two different timelines, the reader needs a heads-up that one is about to flick off and the other, flicking on.

We also have a girl named Chelsea, who is a teenager. One night there is a ritual happening outside her house and the main character watches on in confusion. After this, strange things begin happening to her. Being honest enough though, calling this book 'horror' because of swinging doors and creaky floorboards is really false advertising. I understand that the extended metaphor is that because she is gaslighting herself over the failed relationship that she is now projecting that on to the outside world because of watching something very ritualistic like this - but it turns very empty, very quickly. It is so bland it is unreal.

Another thing I thought about this book is that there were too many side characters that were essentially pointless and were only there because a certain conversation had to happen or, they were there for filler. There were a lot of these pointless conversations that just kept continuing and continuing. I have to admit I have become better at reading lengthy dialogue and not rolling my eyes at how much this writer wanted this conversation to seem realistic, but here I simply couldn't help myself. It completely takes the reader out of the atmosphere of the book and the conversations are more than often bland and repetitive, going nowhere and serving no purpose.

Another thing I have to say was weird about this book is the fact that a woman who is almost my age would befriend a teenager. This is something that raises alarm in my head and possibly makes me think that some things in this book were not fully thought through considering how they would sound on the page. I just found the friendship really inappropriate. As an adult, I would never in my life befriend a teenager - it really is not right. If there was anything to make you dislike this whiny protagonist even more it is definitely this.

The writing has no atmosphere whatsoever. The descriptions are very (I'm going to say the word again!) bland. There's no essence of horror, there's no flair or passion. It just falls completely flat and the reader does not really feel like anything has happened. I think this is mainly because the protagonist is narrating it and that she is annoying and unlikeable; this really just means the reader cares less and less about what's going on with her as the book progresses.

For a book that could have been great based on its storyline advertised, it really did not do the horror genre any justice. I think that this book needs to be described simply as a book that probably needs a whole lot of editing. You could have cut at least 10-20 pages from it and it would have still been the same. There's too many characters, not enough substance and nothing for the reader to care about.