Title: The Sacrifice Box
Author: Martin Stewart
Genre: Young Adult, Horror, Thriller, Fantasy
Format: paperback, 390 pages, published by Penguin
Goodreads Rating: 3.48/5
My Rating: 4/5
Review:
“Sep, Arkle, Mack, Lamb and Hadley: five friends thrown together one hot, sultry summer. When they discover an ancient stone box hidden in the forest, they decide to each make a sacrifice: something special to them, committed to the box for ever. And they make a pact: they will never return to the box at night; they’ll never visit it alone; and they’ll never take back their offerings.
Four years later, the gang have drifted apart. Then a series of strange and terrifying events take place, and Sep and his friends understand that one of them has broken the pact.
As their sacrifices haunt them with increased violence and hunger, they realise that they are not the first children to have found the box in their town’s history. And ultimately, the box may want the greatest sacrifice of all: one of them.” – blurb on Goodreads
This review will be a bit different. You might have noticed that I haven’t posted in quite a while… I’ve dragged posting this review… and others for a while because, honestly I still don’t have a clear idea about this book even now. So in this review there won’t be pros and cons… just an arrangement of my thoughts on this that I hope will make sense. This also means that it will probably be shorter than the others.
Anywaaaay, let me start at the beginning. I took this book from my local library aka heaven for me because that’s where I get most books from for it’s cover. Yup. I took this book because it had a really pretty cover and what was on the back of the book sparked enough interest in me. Also a dear friend of mine was telling me about a manga some days before and this book gave me similar vibes. So, I decided to check it out. Even though it’s horror. And I don’t read horror. Like this might be the first horror book I’ve read. Shocking right?
I started this book and I was confused for a long time but I said I will not give up. I didn’t. I read those 390 pages and was like… ok. First of all some of the characters were annoying. Is that like something that’s in a horror story? I wouldn’t know. Some I really liked, like Sep, Arkle and Hadley. The whole story of the sacrifice box was interesting and how it backfired at them.
However… Horror is supposed to scare you right? I’m not saying there weren’t creepy things like dead animals coming to life and starting to kill people and even a f-ing stuffed bear trying to kill Sep and his friends but whatever. The book was rather slow paced at times and with a lot of descriptions that made me ughhhh. For me it’s a hit or miss with long descriptions and most of the times it was a miss in this book. Towards the end the book did have a good grip on me because I was thinking “what on earth is happening? this a f-ing mess. are they going to make it alive?” so I guess that’s supposed to happen.
I really liked the theme of friendship that the story revolved around and the fact that it showed how powerful and important it is. I liked to see all of the characters starting to get over their silly problems with each other, come clean and finally working together.
Overall, this book isn’t that bad but it wasn’t that great so as to give 5 stars. At least to me. I gave it 4 stars because I liked it, it might not have scared me so much as to not be able to sleep at night but it had the creepy and the suspense. As always, I try not to give up too much because, at least to me, knowing what happens in the book ruins the fun. I hope you got an idea about this book from what I’ve rambled on here and that you liked this. A bit. Bye!
‘We’re all little miracles,’ she said, ‘everything about us: all our stupid habits and our jokes and our weird faces, on a spinning ball that’s a perfect distance from the sun. And now here we are, you and me, sitting on top of a million years of history.’
‘What happens when you break a promise?’
‘What?’
‘People are hurt. Misery, pain, upset. That’s what happens when you break a promise.’
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