Thanks to the author Sam Haysom for sending me a copy of his book The Moor in exchange for an honest review! I liked this book well enough, but I think other people might enjoy it a lot more than me if you’re partial to teenage boys as protagonists.
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My criticism of the protagonists is in fact not even a criticism, because if anything Haysom has written the 5 13-year-old boys perfectly... and my issue is that 13-year-old boys annoy me. Their interactions with each other are spot on, and I really appreciated the extra back story given to Gary which explains why he is the way he is!
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As for the story itself, I thought it was solid! 5 boys and 1 adult take a walking weekend on the moors and creepiness ensues. Perfect horror story setup! I also liked the inclusion of newspaper articles about all the spooky stuff that went down on the Rutland Moors over the years... The story took a turn I wasn’t expecting so that was fun!
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The style was fine in general but I did find some of the dialogue a bit cheesy. Again, I think that was more my issue with the age of the characters that were speaking. Overall I’d say this was a promising debut and I’d be interested in reading more of the author’s future work... perhaps with different protagonists.