Vivian SchillingCritiques

I've got incredibly mixed feelings about this book, truth be told. Quietus is built from atmosphere right from the start, and it was the creepiness of things that swept me into the story from the beginning--and that kept me wanting to turn the page. For most of the book, what builds into a supernatural thriller is atmospheric, dark, and wonderfully paced, with a flavor of horror that I loved. Story-wise, the problem for me came pretty late in the book--maybe three quarters of the way through, the plot's focus moved more into what felt like a familial drama, with grief, family, and domestic concerns taking over. Although I understood the turn and the way the book got there, in a lot of ways, the author lost me. I kept reading out of curiosity, to see what would happen... but even a hundred pages from the end, I already knew I wouldn't be picking up another book by this author. Readers who like both types of fiction, both supernatural thrillers and domestic suspense or women's fiction, might not be bothered by the move... but I have to admit it rather ruined the book for me. Simply, it became a book that I just wasn't interested in, subject-wise and genre-wise.

And, it has to be said that this book should have been a lot shorter. Schilling truly needed a better editor to get involved here and help on a language level, sentence by sentence. There's so much telling (vs. showing), and just in general, the book is overwritten--taking three sentences to make a point when the point was already made two paragraphs before and doesn't need to be restated. That issue alone would probably be enough to keep me from picking up another of Schilling's books, honestly, much as I enjoyed the story in the beginning. My paperback clocks in at 646 pages, and I feel pretty confident in saying that it would be a much better book if it were 100-150 pages shorter, given how overwritten it is.

So, interesting as I found the premise and the beginning, I'm afraid this isn't a book I can recommend.½

***Possible spoilers you have been warned***

I was absolutely into the first half of the book. I loved the dark setting, the dark descent of madness for poor Kylie and trying to figure out what is happening to her and her world. The mood and the setting is dark and meant to be so, this part is excellent and sets the tone of the book. You get the eerie creepy feelings and the writing style is good enough that it could be played out like a movie in your head.

So Kyle as a character is all right. She has her flaws, her marriage has flaws but I’ll be honest to say I really did like her and Jack together. You knew they had major flaws and issues that should have been resolved but they just never got around to it. But their chemistry was excellent and you could feel their love even though sad to say, it was going on a path that just wasn’t meant to be. Although their relationship wasn’t that great to begin with, love was never a problem and they looked and seemed great together but it just wasn’t meant to be.

So let’s get to the plot. It started off on the right foot. Lots of creep factor. The plane crash incident well done. Kylie’s recovery, and the slow descent to what looks like madness (but isn’t) and the book tries to explain this to you while you read. Okay. I can handle this. I wanted to know what happens next.

Then we come across this incident in Kylie’s past that’s coming back to haunt her (see what I did there? Har har) okay. It’s pretty traumatic, and well you did send the guy to death because of a crime he committed so I get it.

Julius though….This guy was a grown man while Kylie was a little girl when he died and all of sudden he’s going all creepy touchy feely and managed to induce this semi wet dream/alternate reality sequence with present day Kylie while she was on public transportation. Yeah. Ok. And stop calling her Kylie Rose. It’s annoying but also creepy in a Pedo kind of way.

So after being introduced to Julius the incubus ghost wannabe the plot just slides down the hill and it becomes almost a chore to read through. I can’t believe this book has to be 608 pages as we already know what’s going on with Kylie and her crew about 200 pages in. It gets too descriptive, too mushy and it attempts to do some sort of surreal thing about life after death yadda yadda yadda.

I tried to like it. I can’t. If you cut the book in half and redid the ending so it wasn’t one long dreary part then the book would have been much better and more enjoyable to read. But this falls so short and it’s unfortunate the theme had promise and even the characters had potential.

I truly enjoyed the experience I had reading this book. From the beginning to the end I was transported into the story. My attention was there every step of the way. Kylie became more and more intriguing as the story progressed. As did the mysterious man that was haunting Kylie in her life. Who was he? What was his connection to Kylie? Was he good or a sign of death?

I read a comment by another reader who mentioned Final Destination movies. Yeah, I kind of saw a bit of a reference to the movies but to me this book was more then the movies. It was not trying to be a knock off. It is kind of funny as I would be complaining about how subtle actions or other events were in a book but with this one it worked. It was kind of poetic the way that there was nothing too bold about the story. It just flowed. Plus, there was an underlining message within the story. Fans of gothic stories may want to check out this book.

Reads like a cross between a cheap thriller and a gratuitus romance novel, with a few interesting comments on death and the afterlife thrown in for readability. Somehow, I found myself hooked into the story, even though the dialouge and sex scenes were distastefully done quite frequently. I admire the author's use of research and creativity, but the style was seriously lacking in some other reguards.

I picked up Quietus in San Francisco (back in September) after finishing Eventide. It seemed harmless enough. Good cover, nice graphics. Okay, the synopsis on the back seemed a little hokey. I should have heard the warning sirens at the phrase "Kylie must fight for her life despite increasing evidence that she is living on borrowed time," but I think I was sucked in by the packaging. Plus, after the emotional roller coaster that was Eventide, I was ready for a plain-and-simple thriller.

This was too plain, too simple, not enough thrills.

It read to me like a literary attempt at recreating the Final Destination movies. People who cheat death are living on that aforementioned "borrowed time" and death eventually comes for them. Sound familiar? Remove the Calvin Klein teenagers, special effects, bad soundtrack, and the guy from Candyman, then convert the entire thing into a 600 page novel, and you've got Quietus.

Granted, in her defense, this book came out in 2002. Final Destination hit the theaters in 2000. It's not a stretch to assume that Vivian Schilling started writing this book well before she saw its doppleganger on the big screen, or heard of it, and can you imagine the sinking feeling in your stomach to be working on a story for any number of years only to find that some Hollywood hack has not only come up with but produced on celluloid the same idea?

On the other hand, Schilling actually writes as if she's trying to recreate a movie on the page. The scenes are laid out visually, as if she was simply describing something she'd seen. Very little of what was in there served to build the characters. She just painted a long series of moving pictures. "Show, don't tell" they teach us in writing classes. It seems to me that Shilling took that too literally.

Stock characters, bad dialogue, poor craftmanship, and a recycled plot. Stay away from this one. Personally, I made it to about 30 pages from the end before we got to Monterey and I picked up the obligatory copy of Cannery Row. One page of Steinbeck made me feel there was goodness in the world again. (I will be posting that review shortly.) Sandwiched between Eventide, which is very well written, and Steinbeck, who is a master, Quietus didn't have a prayer.

What a great story!!!!!!!!!! I highly recommend this book for people who really enjoy creepy stories...this one will haunt you totally.

Kylie and Jack, two of their friends are part of a group on a charter plane leaving a peaceful ski vacation. The pilot takes off in a storm and the plane crashes. The wreckage is found by a local and the four friends and one of the other occupants are pulled out and rescued in the nick of time.

In the hospital, Kylie is the worst off of all of them, and remembers her ordeal vividly. However, it is a strange story that she tells, and the shrink that listens to it tells her she's suffering from survivor guilt or post traumatic stress, whatever. However, events after the crash, after Kylie and Jack try to settle back into a normal routine, prove the doctor wrong. They have all cheated death, but have they really?

This book is 581 pages long and I finished it in an afternoon because I couldn't stop reading it. I was flipping pages at a phenomenal rate because I couldn't stop reading. It was so creepy and so incredibly good that I totally lost myself in it.

If you like a good horror story complete with ghosts and experiences from the other side, you are going to love this book. I very very highly recommend it.

I can easily see this novel being turned into a film. Very visual and good characterizations, with some fascinating chills thrown in. The sex scenes, however, were gratuitous and forced and I skipped over those when I was reading this. Otherwise, not a bad way to kill an afternoon or two :P

You know that movie, what's it called? "Final Destination?" Where the kids avoid death in a plane crash, but are then "stalked" by death because they were supposed to have died? This is book is kind of like that, except smarter.

After Kylie O'Rourke, her husband Jack, and her best friends narrowly escape death in a plane crash, Kylie can't shake the feeling that something weird is going on. Her psychiatrist tells her that the strange experiences she recalls having prior to their rescue from the wreck of the plane simply did not happen -- she never met an angel of death, and she certainly never met and talked to passengers who died on impact. Kylie tries to believe this, but after she realizes she is being stalked by a man who looks exactly like her "imaginary" Angel of Death, she begins to suspect that she was never meant to survive.

This is a tense, well-written thriller, but at times I felt that Schilling got carried away with all of her various plot elements. Some of the story seems both over-the-top and needlessly complicated; we've got sparring spouses, infidelity, repressed memories, past tragedies, Church history, and a dozen other elements all combining in a way that doesn't always work as coherently as one would hope. Still, this book keep me turning the pages, and I found the ending very satisfying.½