Got through a few horror novels by John Ajvide Lindqvist.
Lilla Stjärna (Little Star) had a great first half, showing a small girl being raised in a family where the father emotionally stunts her by never allowing her any contact outside of her cellar room. She is contrasted against an extremely introvert girl in a normal family, ending up overweight and bullied in high school. It's very easy to relate to her problems. I thought that the second half was very contrived though and the book lost me when I couldn't relate to any of the characters anymore as they continued their transformation into monsters. There are quite a few icky scenes in it, but by the end I was bored, not frightened.
Tjärven (the name of the light house isle where the story takes place) was short, simple and a mostly fun zombie story. Again not as scary by the end as in the beginning, there are only so many paragraphs of zombies running over rocky cliffs that one can read before getting used to it I guess.
Best of them all was
Himmelstrand, where four families on vacation wake up with their caravans overnight having been transported into a huge, almost empty area. This kept the creepy mood constant almost all the way through and presented quite a few good, relatable characters to care about. Some arcs were a bit underdeveloped as things went to hell around them, and one of the characters was a bit too much like the Mayor in Under the Dome, a completely self centered cardboard cutout asshole who was a bit too obvious in his role of escalating the situation. Him aside though it was still good.
Overall it was fun to follow the author varying the scenarios and villains quite a bit from
Let The Right One In (although he seems to enjoy creepy preteen girls to an absurd level). I was mildly disappointed in that they weren't as scary in the end as in the beginning or middle. I don't read a lot of horror, are there any recommendations for books who don't end up like that?
