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30 Days of Halloween: 'Adrift' Review

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30 Days of Halloween: ‘Adrift’ Review

Ugh. Vampires. We’re all sick of them. So sick of them, in fact, that I considered not mentioning that they were the monsters in Adrift. But when the book starts with one forcing a human victim to slice pieces of her own flesh off and feed it to him, I think you can safely say there won’t be any forced romance or sparkling skin to worry about.

‘Adrift’ by K.R. Griffiths

adrift-kr-griffiths-cover

The Plot

Dan and Elaine Bellamy have a lot to celebrate. In addition to just getting married, Dan has finally started to make progress with the agoraphobia he’s suffered from since nearly getting killed in a knife attack a few years ago.

The happy couple decides to take their honeymoon on the world’s biggest cruise liner. After they set sail, Dan notices a body being thrown overboard. As you might imagine, this causes him to (understandably) freak out. Unfortunately, no one seems to be taking his concerns seriously.

Then the power goes out.

Then people start dying. Horribly.

What Works

First off, the vampires in this book are awesome. These aren’t suave pretty boys pretending that they’re in high school so they can romance underage girls. The monsters in Adrift are horrifying, disgusting animals—beings of pure evil that inspire nothing but fear and desire nothing more than to devour you.

K.R. Griffiths also adds some cool hints about their mythology that will be explored in later books (which I just discovered are now available!).

The best part of his writing, however, comes from the time spent in Dan’s point of view. His panic and fear are realistically tempered by an even stronger desire to make sure he and Elaine survive. This results is a truly relatable protagonist who isn’t exactly a hero, but definitely heroic.

What Doesn’t Work

The other characters, however, are not nearly as well written. Some get expansive backstories right before being gruesomely killed. Others act like stock-imitations of every gangster or military character you see in a horror film. Aside from Elaine, the book’s entire supporting cast varies from forgettable to completely unlikable.
Fortunately, most of them don’t survive.

Is it Good?

Supporting cast issues aside, Adrift is great—an old school creature feature packed with extra scares and without the added cheese. K.R. Griffiths also creates a main character and a budding mythology that has me all types of excited to see what happens next.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go purchase the next two books.

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