REVIEW: The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue

The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue
Publishing information: Paperback; 288 pages
Publisher: Picador; 13 October 2015
ISBN: The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue
Standalone
Copy: Provided by publisher
Reviewer: Tyson

Amazon

Synopsis: "From the New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Child comes a "classically hypnotic horror story" (Time Out New York) about a young boy trapped inside his own world, whose drawings blur the lines between fantasy and reality.

Ever since he nearly drowned in the ocean three years earlier, ten-year-old Jack Peter Keenan has been deathly afraid to leave his home in a small coastal town in Maine. Instead, Jack Peter begins to draw monsters, and when those monsters take on a life of their own, no one is safe from the terror they inspire. His mother, Holly, begins to hear strange sounds in the night coming from the ocean. When she seeks answers from the local Catholic priest and his Japanese housekeeper, they fill her head with stories of shipwrecks and ghosts. His father, Tim, wanders the beach, frantically searching for a strange apparition running wild in the dunes. And the boy's only friend, Nick, becomes helplessly entangled in the eerie power of the drawings. While those around Jack Peter are haunted by what they think they see, only he knows the truth behind the terrors that lurk in the outside world.

Keith Donohue's The Boy Who Drew Monsters is a mesmerizing tale of psychological terror and imagination run wild."

When The Boy Who Drew Monsters arrived in my mailbox, I really didn't know what to expect. So once rainy day I sat down and opened up the book and quickly fell into the world Donohue created.

It doesn't take many pages for the reader to become engrossed in the world in which the story takes place. Jack is adolescent boy who experienced trauma when he was younger. As a result, he refuses to leave his beachside home. He can barely contain the anxiety he feels when he is forced to leave in order to see his doctor and psychologist. On a whim, his mother buys a art set, which Jack takes to quickly and begins to draw all sorts of things. However, his latest fascination is monsters and that is when things around the house and in town start to change.

While there isn't a lot of supernatural going on in the book there are a few things that make you wonder whether there is something more going on. As I read the novel, I was constantly drawing comparisons to Dan Simmon's The Terror. A book that I loved as it was constantly asking the reader if there was a supernatural creature stalking the crew or if it was just the faulty narrator and his mind playing tricks on him. The Boy Who Drew Monsters has that exact same feel. As strange occurrences happen in and around the Keenan house, his parents begin to suspect that there is someone or something stalking the family.

Perhaps the best thing about this novel is that just when you have things figured out Donohue will flip things on its head and add a new twist to the story. The ending came out of nowhere and had my jaw on the floor as I wasn't expecting it. The Boy Who Drew Monsters was an unexpected find and the perfect read for when you are stuck in the house because of bad weather. Recommended.

Overall 7.5/10