Review: THE NEST by Kenneth Oppel

The Nest by Kenneth Oppel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I finished this book, I threw it across the room. Not in a bad way, mind you, but I needed to react in some way and it was 2 AM and that meant hollering wasn't an option so I threw the book.

THE NEST is a simple horror story. If you wanted, you could boil it down to a campfire tale. Oppel gives so few specific details (I had to look up the main character's name because I wasn't sure it had ever been given--It's Steve, by the way), the story could happen anywhere, and to anyone.

Steve is anxious boy plagued by nightmares. His new brother is a baby with profound medical problems that are never explained to us. It is enough to know that the baby is simply called "baby" because no one expects it to survive.

When Steve is stung by a wasp, a new character is added to the book's very light cast. From that point on, who exactly this mysterious figure is, what it promises, and how it plans to deliver on that promise are rolled out so slowly, with such unwavering intensity, that you'll not want to put THE NEST down until you know the answers.

And then you'll probably throw the book across the room. But not in a bad way.