Genre: Publication.Date November 8th 2014 Pages: 288 Published By: Flux Author Trisha Leaver | Lindsay Currie Creed on Goodreads My review copy: Received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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Three went in. Three came out. None even a shadow of who they once were.
When their car breaks down, Dee, her boyfriend Luke, and his brother Mike walk through a winter storm to take refuge in a nearby town called Purity Springs. When they arrive, the emergency sirens are blaring and the small farming town seems abandoned. With no other shelter, they spend the night in an empty house.
But they soon discover that not everything in Purity Springs is as it seems. When the town's inhabitants suddenly appear the next morning, Dee, Luke, and Mike find themselves at the mercy of the charismatic leader, Elijah Hawkins, who plans to make Dee his new wife. Elijah's son, Joseph, offers to help them escape . . . but the price of his help may be more than Dee and her friends can bear.
(Goodreads)
I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and stared at the screen. No signal. It was getting dark, there wasn't a person in sight, and we had no clue where we were. Great, now all we needed was a skinny, pale girl in a bikini, a big guy in a mask sporting a chainsaw, and a sheriff turned zombie and we had the making for a perfect horror movie.
Mr. Hooper tucked the mace into my hand the day I stated school, told me the first step to getting beyond my past was to take control of my present.
Unnecessarily gore, inconsistently written and almost offensively stupid at times, Creed turned out to be a huge let down for me. This book had so much potential - the creepy setting, the disturbing secrets and the twisted mind of the *bad guy* - but almost non of it was realized. Filled with cheap B-class horror thrills and shockers, it's merely a somewhat entertaining trip to a very disturbed, freaky little town, and just like the characters, I just couldn't wait to get out of there.
I won't lie, I had really high hopes for this novel. And the beginning really was quite masterful, with the atmospheric setting and the mystery behind the creepy little town, but the farther I read, the less I liked it, and the more I got to know the characters, the less I cared about their fates. I loved the premise of this book - three teenagers running out of gas in their car and, as a result of that, getting stuck in a weird town in a middle of nowhere. Right from the beginning, you can tell something is very off. The town is empty; not a single soul in sight. The emergency siren is blasting, adding to the disquieting atmosphere. And then a creepy kid shows up and starts talking about danger, running away before it's too late and making sure "he" doesn't find them, because if "he" does... well, they're in big trouble. Up until this point, I was really enjoying the ride.
This could have been a solid horror/thriller, if only it wasn't so paper thin and lacking substance. Even the characters could have been forgiven their never ending stream of poor and irrational decisions, if only they possessed some qualities that would make them relatable or, at the very least, likeable. But in the end, this book just didn't do it for me. I didn't care about the characters and what would happen to them. I didn't like where the story went and how it all ended. And while I appreciated the disquieting atmosphere of the first couple chapters, the moment coockoo-crazy Elijah shows up and what could be a really bone-chilling thriller turns into a generic, completely predictable horror flick, Creed goes off the cliff for me.
Throughout this entire novel, there's not a single thing to really capture the reader's attention, nothing to emotionally engage them in the characters and their story. Even Dee's tragic past isn't enough to make us sympathize with her, not to mention that it's completely irrelevant to the plot itself. She's a difficult character to follow, mainly because she's either completely disconnected from reality, or too overwhelmed by the things happening to and around her. And, for someone who experienced some pretty horrible things in life, her willingness to let others go through even worse just to save her own skin, is disgusting. I get scarred. I get damaged. I get broken inside and fearful. But I don't get selfish, cold and indifferent to other people's suffering.
On top of all that, some plot developments are just completely baffling to me. Say, Joseph's behavior all throughout the novel. I can't discuss it in detail without spoiling the plot line, but let's just say I don't think I ever rolled my eyes this many times while reading a novel. And I believe even the most avid horror junkies would have a hard time not rolling their eyes at the randomness and blandness of it all.
I would recommend this book to people who are looking for a quick, disturbing horror flick to keep them entertained on those long, late-autumn evenings. And only if you're craving something that does not require too much commitment, nor the use of your brain muscle.
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