Number 82- Playing Possum - Stephanie Rabig

 

Another book that was created to match a cover drawn by Keelan Patrick Burke featuring an unlikely killer beast. The first of these was The Roo- which was my introduction to Alan Baxter, who is now one of my go-to writers. There's a third book called The Cassowary which is also on my shelves. The proceeds from all three go to the World Wildlife Fund which is as good a reason as any to buy these books.

Sadly in this case it's the best reason to buy it. Despite loving the first chapter, which features one of the best shreddies I've seen for a while in a horror novel, the rest of the book doesn't quite work for me.

The storyline is truly bonkers and should be right up my street. The possums in a small town have gone berserk and started eating people. Those fortunate enough to survive an attack find themselves mutating into human sized possums and going on the warpath themselves.

There are some good set pieces scattered through the book and some laugh out loud funny moments so it isn't a total loss.

The characters just never really came alive for me. I know in the scy-fy channel movies that this book seeks to emulate, the characters are not alllowed more than one dimension, and cardboard cutout is a generous description, but other than Vanessa- the hero of the hour, the characters in this struggle to even gain one dimension to make us care about them. 

The prose is very basic too and didn't drag this particular reader through the book the way it should have done. 

There wasn't enough possum action. With the lack-lustre characters there needed to be more possum mayhem, and less personal relationship issues. Basically, a few more shreddies would have really lifted this up to a good fun and silly read. Instead it was more silly and less fun.

It's worth reading, but I would struggle to score this more than 5/10.