Book Review: Fellside by M.R. Carey
Jess Moulson is sentenced to Fellside in this book by MR Carey, a brutal prison where mysterious things are a-happenin’ to the inmates.
Extended dream sequences can be tough. They’re often tiresome, shiftless, and (dare I say?) boring. That’s not the case here.
In Fellside, dreams are where the action happens.
I wouldn’t say this book is scary, but it is dreamy and dark. Maybe a little too dreamy and dark.
Everything is so fluid and other-worldly in a dream state, as if it’s not of much consequence.
Here’s the main difference for me where The Girl with All the Gifts succeeds and Fellside falls just a hair short: generally speaking, the baddies are pure bad and the goodies are pure good.
Jess is too much of an angelic victim. Even her drug abuse has an air of not being entirely her fault. Even though she is honest about her downfall in her recollections, it still feels a little too whitewashed.
The antagonists are evil personified, without a shred of good in them. They’re almost too evil to be believable.
I don’t want to overgeneralize. Of course, there are a few conflicted characters who try and keep seeming to fail at doing the right thing.
Overall, this is a great story that’s quite different from others I’ve read. I look forward very much to reading more from M.R. Carey (including his next one, The Boy on the Bridge, coming May 2017 – can’t wait!)
