Before_he_wakes

Sometimes the things you don’t like has more pathways to explore than the things you do like. I listened to Before He Wakes by Mark Allen Gunnels.. and I didn’t like the book.

Still.. it stays with me. The basement; the rotted floor in the attic; the ’never give up’; the buddhism; the in-your-face DEI-subjects and .. finally: the ending.

I don’t like politics in books.. in fiction. A book is a dream and I don’t want politics in my dream. Stephen King’s Holly was unreadable because of the politics.

But when I tell myself that some old Agatha Christie is free from politics.. I’m not sure I’m truthful.

Gunnels sneaks in a homosexual relationship and a mixed race relationship.. and it feels like an obsession. It doesn’t help the story. It’s just there to normalize it in your mind. And I have no problems with relationships of any kind being normalized.. giving both parties are adult and of sound mind and not under pressure. But to normalize something.. you must refrain from talking about it constantly.

Then Gunnels complicate things. He makes me despise the protagonist. He turns him into i fake and a coward.

We also have the house where they are imprisoned. They are forced to eat dog-food and live in darkness. When they escape the cellar and come up to the house.. every door is locked and every window is barred. They find the attic.. that has a rotten floor.

I don’t want to spoil the book if someone would read this and try the book out.

NOTE: I’m not happy with this text.. but I’ll keep it anyway.

NOTE2: I’ll try to find When it Rains by the same author.