- Title:
- Rampike: A Supernatural Thriller
- Author:
- European P. Douglas
- Release:
- June 26, 2018
- Format:
- Audiobook
- Narrator:
- Tom Taverna.
This is a book I want to give a better rating to because the payoff is decent. But the buildup to it is insufferable. It seems as if every other sentence or every other bit of dialogue is plagued with; (Character name) said. To a lesser extent, asked or answered. The word said must be used in this book several hundred times.
The second reason I find it difficult to recommend is that it’s an exceptionally slow burn. I was initially playing the audiobook at 1.75x speed and it felt slow. It felt like nothing of note was happening. I was halfway through the book when I sped things up to 2.5x speed and it finally started to go somewhere.
If you couldn’t tell by the summary; the book is reminiscent of the movies ‘The Mist’ and ‘Tremors, both old favorites of mine and the only thing that kept my interest.
The narrator carries his intense way of talking even to the end of the chapters. So it sounds strange when he abruptly stops talking and there’s a several-second pause before the new chapter number is read. He does an alright job with character voices. Though I did have to skim back through the book to find a conversation to see if they even sounded different.
The word “white” shows up a great many times in this story. The only reason I even took notice of it is that the narrator can’t pronounce it properly. He says “hwhhite”, and any other word that has wh, he adds 2 – 3 h onto it. I found this to be distracting and annoying as hell. As I do any time a narrator can’t pronounce basic words properly.
If you give this one a read (or listen), make sure you’re not the least bit tired. If you’re patient enough to listen to or read half a book worth of middle of nowhereville problems, the payout is decent. I’ll admit, I nearly gave up on this halfway through. When it finally picked up, I decided to give it another chance. I’m glad I experienced it once, but I won’t be doing so again.
NOTE: This copy was provided to me free of charge as a digital review copy. The opinions stated in this review are mine and mine alone, I was not paid or requested to give this book a certain rating, suggestion, or approval.