Book Reviews

Book Blurb

Jeremy is stuck, like most young New Yorkers, in a world between adolescence and adulthood. Just when he thought that he was an average, blend-in-with-the-crowd gay kid, he becomes the victim of a terrible act of homophobia. Thankfully, a mysterious something comes to his aid. Garth is a gargoyle, trapped in stone and cursed to live an immortal life. Human and monster must become friends and confront the mysterious and magical events of the past that have brought them together.

Book Review

It has been a long time since I sat down and read a fairy tale. I have always loved them from the Brothers Grimm to the sensationalized tales told by Disney and Warner Brothers. There is a peacefulness to fairy tales, for me, even the ones that are frightening and have a darker story to tell. Although, I will admit, this is the very first time I've read a novel where the author named one of his protagonists after himself. Huh.

Jeremy is having a pretty bad run of luck. Not six months out of college, he has a degree but no acting jobs, he's depressed, and a little over-exaggerating when it comes to his lonely, sad life. After leaving a New Year's Eve party he is physically assaulted in a hate crime. He is rescued by an unknown man who cleans his wounds and must have taken him home, because he wakes in his own bed. Less than a week later, Jeremy is attacked in a subway tunnel, but saved again by the unknown man. This time, though, Jeremy insists on discovering who he is, only to find out he isn't a man, at all. He's a gargoyle, or a grotesque, as he calls them, for gargoyles are simply drain pipes. Thus began Jeremy's friendship with Garth, the Guardian, and their weekly meetings of getting to know each other.

Garth was born human a very, very long time ago. When his countrymen rose up in rebellion against their king, Garth was forced to go to war, no matter how frightened of it he was. Trying to hide from the enemy soldiers did no good, and, in the end, Garth and the remaining rebels, left barely alive, were branded traitors by the king and his soldiers. When one of the rebels, stupidly, pronounced the king a monster, the king fed them and gave them water. Unbeknownst to the rebels, the food and drink was cursed, they became the monsters, and Garth grew horns and a hump overnight. The "monsters" were forced into slavery, guarding the king and capital city. If they attempted to leave, their disgusting shape would have people hunting them down, killing them, and then the king would send his soldiers to their family and kill them. When the king's new religion prevailed, he needed to hide these guardians away for it wasn't seemly for the king to have demons guarding him. So, the king turned them to stone, and made it so they slept during the day and only awoke at night to protect and guard.

It doesn't take long for Jeremy to discover that Garth killed the two men who attacked Jeremy, and it isn't the first time he has killed to protect the innocent. Somehow, Jeremy has befriended a vigilante grotesque. But, Garth is the only thing that Jeremy feels safe with. Jeremy is plagued by nightmares of intense evil and he truly believes that because his mind is so often fixated on the bad, the bad does, actually, find him. With Garth's help, Jeremy and he go on a journey, of sorts, a quest, I could call it, to discover why this is happening to Jeremy and what they can do to make it stop. There's a witch, a vampire, a prince, and a demon, and perhaps something coming after Jeremy in revenge against Garth.

This was a different story. I honestly couldn't find it in myself to like Jeremy. He was way too emo for me, constantly wallowing in self-pity and depression, and then wrapping this layer of arrogance over himself. Garth, on the other hand, I adored. He had the soul deep kindness not seen so very much anymore, and he understood about sacrifice for something greater than yourself. It was an interesting and long book that took the fairy tale genre out to the extremes, but in a fairly good way. If you enjoy the decidedly quirky with a hint of tales of old, then this book might be for you.

 

 

 

 

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Additional Information

Format	ebook and print
Length	Novel, 264 pages
Heat Level
Publication Date	01-November-2012
Price	$3.99 ebook, 11.95 paperback
Buy Link	http://amzn.to/2bpkFKF