Ghost Story discussion

I have tried to get into Ghost Story a few times, having been brainwashed by some glowing reviews that it was one of the "best horror novels" ever. Unfortunately, I have always ended up tossing the book aside, as it bored me to tears.

I agree with you a hundred percent!!!!!!

Glad to hear it. To compare Ghost Story to Marmite - you either love it or loathe it - is, I think, a fitting analogy.

This is an exceptional ghost story. I agree the first half is a bit slow but it pays off in the end. I suggest you try again and stick with it. You will be surprised I think.

No, thanks, I don't think I will. It is not the sort of book I could even contemplate re-reading.

A lot of Straub's stuff is tough to get into! Has anyone read Shadowland? Amazing book, but similarly hard to get hooked on!

Agreed. And everyone raves about it so much. I think I need to re-read it to get an appreciation. I just don't see the hook. I guess I wanted something that was going to scare me and this simply was not frightening. Maybe I need to pick it up again to appreciate it from another angle. Who knows.

The absolute most boring book I've ever read. Nowhere near scary. Nowhere near compelling.

I'm not sure who got paid to say that this book was worth reading, but hopefully it was worth it.

I read the whole thing but spaced out a lot while reading it. He needed an editor to clean it up a bit in my opinion...

I found that the book was pretty strong when the enemy was this sort of dark abstracted evil force that causes stuff to go bad. As the book progresses and the monster is identified, it becomes more and more disappointing. I liked the descriptive style of writing and I found the setting compelling, but the story fell through. Also, it felt sort of unintentionally sexist, with some male "good guy" protagonists vs. a bunch of evil females. There was no good reason for this and I wonder if the author maybe has some sort of subconscious hangups.

One of those rare instances when the movie is better (much better) than the book.

I also felt the movie was better than the book and was disappointed
that it wasn’t even a true ghost story. If I wanted a Shapeshifting
werewolf book, I certainly wouldn’t have expected it out of the
title “Ghost Story”. Not sure if I’ll bother with another one of Straub’s books after that.

I loved Ghost Story. In my opinion, Straub is at his best when he writes horror with a supernatural theme; his novel, Julia is an actual ghost story.

Also, these books are old school, written back before paranormal shifter romances were invented. No one really aspired to bumpin' uglies with werewolves back then so.......no romance in the Straub books.

I read the glowing reviews about this book but bored me too tears and really struggled to finish it.

Sorry to hear that, Calvin. Maybe middle grade books aren't for you.

Or were you talking about Ghost Story. Was I assuming you were referring to my book? It's got glowing reviews too. Lol.

No Diana I wasn’t referring to your book Inwax talking about Ghost story by Staub