From
the inside flap
“Return
to Malcasa Point, where two young lovers are meeting at midnight for a very
special date. Meeting at the legendary Beast House. . .after hours. . .in the
dark. It will be a night they never forget!”
Review
Warning:
possible spoilers in this review.
Plot: When
unsure-of-himself Mark lands that unexpected first date with the oh-so-hot
Alison, he is thrilled. Of course, there is her “one condition” that said
outing take place in the local Beast House.
Friday is a
trifle side-story in the Beast House quadrilogy, set at no specified time─although
bad-ass cop Eve Chaney, last seen in The Midnight Tour, is in this
fourth book.
That said, it is a mostly fun, short read, with
a disturbing and─for the main characters─happy ending. I write “disturbing”
because Laymon’s dark, and I mean dark, sense of humor perhaps goes too
far when one of the characters, subject to an extended rape session, is
nonchalant about it at book's end. While I understand I was meant to be disturbed
(on a certain level), reading this─in 2001 or 2019─strikes me as
amazingly tone deaf. True, there were other rapes in the Beast House books, but
Alison’s blithe shoulder-shrug response is unlike other, more realistic
characters’ responses to the same experiences. It would be a stretch to say I
am offended but Alison’s seemingly sincere attitude just seemed off, not
realistic and, as I said earlier, tone deaf.
Friday
is
not a terrible book, but it is an unnecessary entry in the Beast House series.
Borrow it from the library if you can, and if you must purchase it, get it used
and cheap.
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