The Haunting of Black River Forest – Jaydeep Shah

1 star

I’m going to start by saying that I think this story has potential. With a pass through editing and developmental, and maybe more pages, I think this story could be something interesting. As it is, it didn’t really click with me.

Reading this story made me feel like I was going down a checklist of elements of a slasher (which was a little confusing against the title since there weren’t any paranormal elements like the title inplies). The author seemed to do more telling than showing, and it didn’t leave me a lot of room to form my own pictures and opinions.

The characters felt cardboardy, and it was hard for me to relate to them and want them to survive. The characters, but Mia, especially, made some highly questionable decisions that didn’t really make a lot of sense. The dialogue between them was far more formal than I would expect from teenagers and lovers/best friends.

The premise of the story itself sounds interesting, but fell a little short for me in the execution.