[Tom4784]

I've read two books lately, Ring by Koji Suzuki and Penpal by Dathan Auerbach.

It was interesting to read the original Ring, which felt a lot more science fiction-esque than the ghost stories of the films, but I did have a massive issue with it that really prevented me from enjoying it.

Spoiler:

in the original book, instead of a reporter and her ex-husband investigating the tape, it's a reporter and a friend from school and his friend, it turns out, is a serial rapist that gloats about his crimes to the main character and the main character does nothing about it, in fact at one point, he invites the bastard into the home he shares with his wife and daughter and it's just repugnant. THEN, when the rapist dies, we get forcefed a redemption arc where we get told he lied about raping women because he was a virgin and he ends up saving the day and I'm just nonplussed by the whole thing. It's annoying because it completely ruined the book for me when the core story and it's differences to the story we all know are quite fascinating. Like, there's no ghosts coming out of the TV this time, Sadako/Samara doesn't actually appear at all, and everything that happens has nothing to do with ghosts but her psychic powers going out of control in death.

Penpal was better and had some straight up eerie moments that have stuck with me, but the writing is so formal, stiff and long winded that the author somehow made a 200 page book feel too long, which is a real shame because the story itself is excellent, but the writing is just.... frigid.