Book Review: "This Thing Between Us" by Gus Moreno

There were many times were I thought to myself that maybe I should be reading a more modern horror with more modern themes and more modern things. That was when I came across Gus Moreno's This Thing Between Us where the horror is so modern that some of it comes in the form of the world's smartest smart speaker. Although this may have had a lot of potential, I found myself bored with the writing style, annoyed at the lack of atmosphere and just felt nothing for the main character. Though the concept was there, it would have been better written by a more experienced writer who can do atmosphere, character-based plots and narrative voice very well. It doesn't have to be Stephen King though I would love to see his take on it. I just don't think this guy was the right guy to write this story. It always felt lacking and underwhelming and the ending left me with nothing. No emotion, no insight, no questions - just nothing at all.

This book is about a smart speaker, a woman's death and her husband's weird second-person narrative communication which seems to go on forever. An attempt at cosmic horror which honestly could not have worked less, this writer is one of the reasons I do not tend to read modern horror very often. The writing style was a huge let-down. Now, it is not very usual that I award zero marks out of five for a book but I would actually recommend you to just skip over this one if you want to read actual horror.

Here are the disadvantages of this novel:

First and foremost is the concept. The concept is okay and it has a goot footing in what would be considered 'twisty' horror which brings about suburban difficulties in the modern world. However, it is terribly predictable and as I have said, it is only okay. Be that as it may, even an average style storyline can be lifted by good writing. Unfortunately, the book was not written well either and had a number of huge issues.

The second problem was the writing style. There was no atmosphere, there was no darkness. It felt like the writer was just information dumping at points and without description, the story ran dry very quickly. After a while, the narrative voice became almost repetitive like he was droning on and on and on to the point where the average reader would have stopped caring a long time ago.

The third problem again, was with narrative voice. The second-person narrative style of the first part felt like it should have been a great idea if it were written by a better writer. There was hardly any emotion poured into this and yet, we are supposed to be at a funeral. There are no hints as to what happened, there is no information about the dead woman apart from how much her husband hates her friends. There is no grief being displayed by the husband. It is dry, detached and reads like a draft of a story rather than the actual story itself.

The final problem was the lack of character. The main character is Thiago who serves as the narrative voice mostly. Yet I feel like he's one of those characters I dislike for his inability to actually voice any form of emotion or passion whatsoever. He is such a boring, dull and lifeless character that he even makes his love for his dead wife, Vera, seem inauthentic and forced. The writer's intentions may have been good but it leaves a sour taste in the reader's mouth. This is clearly the writing of a novice who needs to take some writing classes.

All in all, I would recommend you skip this one with my entire heart and soul. I read it in one day but seriously, I feel like it was a day of reading wasted and I was glad not to delve too deeply into it. I felt like the ending was a real deal breaker too. If it were any good, I would have given this book at least one mark for its efforts - but no, it was awful as well.