BarryHutchison

Lovely jubbly!

OK, here goes…

It’s never easy to tell someone you really don’t like something they’ve written. It’s even more difficult when you know that person. When you’re sharing an underground cave with them, surrounded by monsters? Then it’s a really unpleasant thing to have to do.

Luckily, then, I have to do no such thing, as CRAWLERS is perhaps the best book I’ve read this year.

Sometimes – very, very rarely – you come across a book that could have been written for you and you alone. Everything about it, from the initial concept to the execution of detail is exactly how you would want it to be, almost as if someone has reached inside your head, pulled out your mental wish-list, and set to work ticking off all the boxes.

For me, one such book is GONE by Michael Grant. Another – perhaps the only other – is CRAWLERS by Sam Enthoven.

A squirm-inducing schlock horror, CRAWLERS tells the story of eight children – four boys and four girls – who find themselves trapped in the Barbican Theatre by a horde of squidgy, slimy spider-like creatures. These horrible little beasties can latch on to a human host, placing the unsuspecting person completely under the control of the spider-creatures’ deliciously sinister queen.

Thrown together, the children must overcome their differences as they try to find a way to escape the theatre and avoid becoming slaves to the queen. But as tensions mount so their paranoia begins to grow, threatening to tear the group apart. Only two of the group – Jasmine and Ben – seem to have what it takes to pull the others through the ordeal, and they must do all they can to force the others to listen to them before it’s too late.

I read most of the book on the train to Newcastle last week, en route to the Reading Partners event at the Newcastle City Library (more on that soon, honest). I became so engrossed in the story that I didn’t once look up to even glance out of the window. That’s because this book is exactly like the creatures featured in its pages – it creeps up on you and sinks it hooks right into you. After that, it has you. Your will is no longer your own, and you must keep reading to find out what happens next.

What I love most about this book – and what I love about all of Sam’s books – is that you can tell how much fun he had writing it. I can actually picture him sitting at the desk, cackling excitedly to himself as he came up with increasingly horrific ways in which to torture his cast of characters. He’s a sick, sick man, and I for one am eternally grateful for that fact.

Part Alien, part Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 100% flippin’ brilliant. Be sure to catch CRAWLERS when it is published in April, because if you don’t the Crawlers may well catch you.