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A review by mrogows
Krampus: The Yule Lord by Brom
2.0
I picked up this book as a fan of The Krampus as a character and legend. I was hoping for some good lore on the character of the Krampus and see if a good story could be told with it.
This was a disappointment.
I was invested and very interested with the story of the Krampus and the Lore the Brom had laid out for Krampus. I really enjoyed how the author tied in traditional lore of Krampus with a very interesting take on the origins of Santa Claus. Everything dealing with Krampus and Santa was amazing.
It's the other 3/4ths of this book that just didn't work for me. The main character, a bumpkin named Jesse, is incredibly boring, cliché, and one dimensional. I dreaded any part of the novel that revolved around him. I literally could not care less for Jesse's tribulations and had no emotional connections to his stakes. By the end of the book, I was rooting for his downfall (and was sadly disappointed when it inevitably didn't happen).
The last point (which is more of a nit-pick than criticism) is this book really needed one more round of edits. There are a lot of sections that are awkward to read and need some fine tuning. The choice of language in terms of profanity was also very odd. A character in the same conversation will be more constrained and reserved; using dung, frick, and heck for emphasis or description, then switch to fuck, shit, and gory descriptions of deeds. I kept getting thrown out of the book with the amount of 'hecks' being sloshed around and kept thinking 'why not just write hell???'.
Also, this book has A LOT of homophobia and outdated language in it that made reading this book an extremely uncomfortable read at times (and not in the fun horror kind of way). I would have given this a pass if it was written 20 years ago, but not 10 years ago. We knew better back then.
Finally, there were many passages in this book that should have been gutted or saved for another book. I really feel as though Brom was trying to write two books and couldn't decide on which to publish so smashed them together to see if they could work. The first was a new take on an old forgotten figure such as Krampus; diving deep into their lore, their relationships with how we currently celebrate Christmas, and how they wish to take their mantle back. The second was the struggles of a down on his luck washed up failed musician, trying to finally turn his life around and do good in a corrupted small town in West Virginia.
Remember: It's always better to full ass one thing, than try to half ass two. Hopefully there's a book out there that itches my scratch for more Krampus Lore, as this novel was bogged down by too much that I just couldn't make myself care for.
This was a disappointment.
I was invested and very interested with the story of the Krampus and the Lore the Brom had laid out for Krampus. I really enjoyed how the author tied in traditional lore of Krampus with a very interesting take on the origins of Santa Claus. Everything dealing with Krampus and Santa was amazing.
It's the other 3/4ths of this book that just didn't work for me. The main character, a bumpkin named Jesse, is incredibly boring, cliché, and one dimensional. I dreaded any part of the novel that revolved around him. I literally could not care less for Jesse's tribulations and had no emotional connections to his stakes. By the end of the book, I was rooting for his downfall (and was sadly disappointed when it inevitably didn't happen).
The last point (which is more of a nit-pick than criticism) is this book really needed one more round of edits. There are a lot of sections that are awkward to read and need some fine tuning. The choice of language in terms of profanity was also very odd. A character in the same conversation will be more constrained and reserved; using dung, frick, and heck for emphasis or description, then switch to fuck, shit, and gory descriptions of deeds. I kept getting thrown out of the book with the amount of 'hecks' being sloshed around and kept thinking 'why not just write hell???'.
Also, this book has A LOT of homophobia and outdated language in it that made reading this book an extremely uncomfortable read at times (and not in the fun horror kind of way). I would have given this a pass if it was written 20 years ago, but not 10 years ago. We knew better back then.
Finally, there were many passages in this book that should have been gutted or saved for another book. I really feel as though Brom was trying to write two books and couldn't decide on which to publish so smashed them together to see if they could work. The first was a new take on an old forgotten figure such as Krampus; diving deep into their lore, their relationships with how we currently celebrate Christmas, and how they wish to take their mantle back. The second was the struggles of a down on his luck washed up failed musician, trying to finally turn his life around and do good in a corrupted small town in West Virginia.
Remember: It's always better to full ass one thing, than try to half ass two. Hopefully there's a book out there that itches my scratch for more Krampus Lore, as this novel was bogged down by too much that I just couldn't make myself care for.