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cirquedesgeeksTitle: Final Destination: Looks Could Kill
Author: Nancy A. Collins
Published: Black Flame, 2006
Notes: Bought in a library sale // 383 pages // Horror/Slasher // Paperback // Read 19/2/12
TRIGGER WARNINGS: (skip) This book contains mentions of abuse (physical, sexual and drug), graphic deaths, body image issues (bulimia, surgery abuse), and trauma.
Blurb: Strike a pose. It could be your last...
Working on the fiendishly clever premise that you cannot cheat Death and he will eventually catch up with you no matter what you do, the Final Destination series continues with this nerve-shredding trip into the limelight. Looks Could Kill sweeps you into the ultra-glamourous world of supermodels and fashion photographers. When an upcoming starlet is horribly disfigured trying to save her friends, she is given an unexpected second chance. All she has to do is help Death do away with her friends.
Opportunity knocks for budding young models... but Death just lets himself in.
Judging a book by its cover: There is really... Nothing to this cover. It's not distinctive or impressive, in my opinion, and the mask doesn't even match the one described in the book. The silhouette and indistinct background really don't help to set this book apart, or give any hint as to what it might be about. I don't approve.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm going to admit that I didn't even know the Final Destination films were a thing until they started advertising Final Destination 5 on buses. Lex had to explain the basic premise (a disaster occurs, a group of people escape - and then they're killed off in gruesome disgusting ways until there are none left.). I'll be honest: this is not my scene. The only thing involving slashers (of the murderous rather than fanfic-writing type) that I've really enjoyed in the past is Hack/Slash, which has The Last Girl from a slasher attack going off to hunt down other slashers. That is a review for another day - now, I have a tie-in novel to review.
If you, like me, work on the theory that all tie-in novels are probably quite bad to begin with, then this is something of a pleasant surprise - well, in that it's not actively bad and the prose is actually decent. There's a fair few typos, and as the characters in this book are all in the fashion world every time a character turns up is prefaced with a list of colours and labels. I ended up skimming over these paragraphs by the end, because a) my brand recognition is limited/non-existent and b) whenever someone tries to describe fashionable clothing in a book, it throws me out of the story trying to work out whether or not those colours go together. Apart from that... Prose-wise there is nothing really distinguishable about it.
If you're wondering whether I'm lumping the deaths in with that - the various methods of death are... Inventive, I suppose, and I found the Rube-Goldberg Device nature of some of them to be interesting, but again, the writing didn't make any of them stand out to me. In most cases, I admit I was just going "Wow, they did not deserve to die like that. No, I don't care how pissed off at them you are - I don't think any of them have done anything to warrant that." I assume that what the author was going for was "disgusting" and in most cases they managed to reach it. Pointlessly, ridiculously, and often predictably, but they reached it.
Part of my reaction is probably from the format of the book, where the characters' backstories are revealed not long before they're killed. (Am I the only one to notice that when a female character has massive issues, it's always because of something their mother did or did not do? I'm not sure whether or not this is just because of the setting - I don't want to excuse it either way - but I still find it strange and somewhat off-putting.) Most of the characters: actually kinda sympathetic! I know this is a shameless manipulation ploy, but it is effective. Honestly, out of all of the characters, I find Death to be the most petty and vindictive character in this book - if you prefer you Deaths as cute goth rockers or humourous skeletons or just an impersonal being, this is not the interpretation for you. This is a cruel death who arranges for people to suffer, who actively hates life and is trying to destroy it all. I... Didn't really like this version of Death, because he was such an asshole. Plus, I have a hard time with the premise (Sherry deciding that peoples' lives aren't as important as her own looks), which I think is partly me having a horrible case of privelege, and partly me not wanting to get into that kinda headspace. I can appreciate that her back is against a wall in almost every respect (no skills, just drove off her friends, no money coming in.) and that she's been offered magic to fix all of her problems - but I still think that the fact that apparently no one over the course of her therapy or time in hospital discussed options or plans or... Anything at all about her future with her? Cabby didn't get in touch with her after her outburst to discuss things? Also: she got hit by shrapnel that only got her arm and face, no where else on her body? I have trouble with it. And I'm not keen on the ending - I know it could be considered poetic justice, but it's just... There is enough death in this book, okay? I do not need the slasher to come back for one last scare.
Also, is it just me or does this book have a massive plot-hole in it? (Skip this spoiler) On page 96, Death says that "It is imperative that those who escaped their deaths be reclaimed by me in the exact order in which they were originally slated to die..." (emphasis mine). The thing that gets me about this is that Cabernet is shown to die before Gunter. I know that in theory, there was probably something on the way down that could have killed Gunter before Cabernet died - but we're not shown that. We're shown Cabernet dying before he does in the premonition, and then later Gunter getting killed while Cabernet is still alive. I suppose that my real problem with this (apart from that I liked Gunter and wanted him to live with his family) is that I can't imagine why Death would take any significance from a photo, as Gunter surmises he's doing, when he knows the order they were supposed to die in. Did anyone else have a problem with this?
My final opinion is that while this book was okay as a one-off read, I'm not sure that I'd read it again. I marked it as a 2 star book on GoodReads (Although I have had a serious debate with myself about whether or not I should knock points off for using the phrase "Fo shizzle my nizzle."), but honestly it's closer to a 1.5. If you like slasher films, or even the actual film series this is a tie-in novel for, you might enjoy it more.
(I apologise for the scattered nature of this review - it is being written straight onto the computer while I'm feeling somewhat sleep deprived, rather than drafted a couple of times beforehand.)
Author: Nancy A. Collins
Published: Black Flame, 2006
Notes: Bought in a library sale // 383 pages // Horror/Slasher // Paperback // Read 19/2/12
TRIGGER WARNINGS: (skip) This book contains mentions of abuse (physical, sexual and drug), graphic deaths, body image issues (bulimia, surgery abuse), and trauma.
Blurb: Strike a pose. It could be your last...
Working on the fiendishly clever premise that you cannot cheat Death and he will eventually catch up with you no matter what you do, the Final Destination series continues with this nerve-shredding trip into the limelight. Looks Could Kill sweeps you into the ultra-glamourous world of supermodels and fashion photographers. When an upcoming starlet is horribly disfigured trying to save her friends, she is given an unexpected second chance. All she has to do is help Death do away with her friends.
Opportunity knocks for budding young models... but Death just lets himself in.
Judging a book by its cover: There is really... Nothing to this cover. It's not distinctive or impressive, in my opinion, and the mask doesn't even match the one described in the book. The silhouette and indistinct background really don't help to set this book apart, or give any hint as to what it might be about. I don't approve.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm going to admit that I didn't even know the Final Destination films were a thing until they started advertising Final Destination 5 on buses. Lex had to explain the basic premise (a disaster occurs, a group of people escape - and then they're killed off in gruesome disgusting ways until there are none left.). I'll be honest: this is not my scene. The only thing involving slashers (of the murderous rather than fanfic-writing type) that I've really enjoyed in the past is Hack/Slash, which has The Last Girl from a slasher attack going off to hunt down other slashers. That is a review for another day - now, I have a tie-in novel to review.
If you, like me, work on the theory that all tie-in novels are probably quite bad to begin with, then this is something of a pleasant surprise - well, in that it's not actively bad and the prose is actually decent. There's a fair few typos, and as the characters in this book are all in the fashion world every time a character turns up is prefaced with a list of colours and labels. I ended up skimming over these paragraphs by the end, because a) my brand recognition is limited/non-existent and b) whenever someone tries to describe fashionable clothing in a book, it throws me out of the story trying to work out whether or not those colours go together. Apart from that... Prose-wise there is nothing really distinguishable about it.
If you're wondering whether I'm lumping the deaths in with that - the various methods of death are... Inventive, I suppose, and I found the Rube-Goldberg Device nature of some of them to be interesting, but again, the writing didn't make any of them stand out to me. In most cases, I admit I was just going "Wow, they did not deserve to die like that. No, I don't care how pissed off at them you are - I don't think any of them have done anything to warrant that." I assume that what the author was going for was "disgusting" and in most cases they managed to reach it. Pointlessly, ridiculously, and often predictably, but they reached it.
Part of my reaction is probably from the format of the book, where the characters' backstories are revealed not long before they're killed. (Am I the only one to notice that when a female character has massive issues, it's always because of something their mother did or did not do? I'm not sure whether or not this is just because of the setting - I don't want to excuse it either way - but I still find it strange and somewhat off-putting.) Most of the characters: actually kinda sympathetic! I know this is a shameless manipulation ploy, but it is effective. Honestly, out of all of the characters, I find Death to be the most petty and vindictive character in this book - if you prefer you Deaths as cute goth rockers or humourous skeletons or just an impersonal being, this is not the interpretation for you. This is a cruel death who arranges for people to suffer, who actively hates life and is trying to destroy it all. I... Didn't really like this version of Death, because he was such an asshole. Plus, I have a hard time with the premise (Sherry deciding that peoples' lives aren't as important as her own looks), which I think is partly me having a horrible case of privelege, and partly me not wanting to get into that kinda headspace. I can appreciate that her back is against a wall in almost every respect (no skills, just drove off her friends, no money coming in.) and that she's been offered magic to fix all of her problems - but I still think that the fact that apparently no one over the course of her therapy or time in hospital discussed options or plans or... Anything at all about her future with her? Cabby didn't get in touch with her after her outburst to discuss things? Also: she got hit by shrapnel that only got her arm and face, no where else on her body? I have trouble with it. And I'm not keen on the ending - I know it could be considered poetic justice, but it's just... There is enough death in this book, okay? I do not need the slasher to come back for one last scare.
Also, is it just me or does this book have a massive plot-hole in it? (Skip this spoiler) On page 96, Death says that "It is imperative that those who escaped their deaths be reclaimed by me in the exact order in which they were originally slated to die..." (emphasis mine). The thing that gets me about this is that Cabernet is shown to die before Gunter. I know that in theory, there was probably something on the way down that could have killed Gunter before Cabernet died - but we're not shown that. We're shown Cabernet dying before he does in the premonition, and then later Gunter getting killed while Cabernet is still alive. I suppose that my real problem with this (apart from that I liked Gunter and wanted him to live with his family) is that I can't imagine why Death would take any significance from a photo, as Gunter surmises he's doing, when he knows the order they were supposed to die in. Did anyone else have a problem with this?
My final opinion is that while this book was okay as a one-off read, I'm not sure that I'd read it again. I marked it as a 2 star book on GoodReads (Although I have had a serious debate with myself about whether or not I should knock points off for using the phrase "Fo shizzle my nizzle."), but honestly it's closer to a 1.5. If you like slasher films, or even the actual film series this is a tie-in novel for, you might enjoy it more.
(I apologise for the scattered nature of this review - it is being written straight onto the computer while I'm feeling somewhat sleep deprived, rather than drafted a couple of times beforehand.)
