Stolen Roads by Randy Chandler

Stolen Roads - Randy Chandler

  I read this for the creepy crawlies square.   There are giant maggot monsters here and if that doesn't make your skin crawl in horror, there is no fixing you!

 

My reading life is often strange but it’s usually pretty varied. I typically read my review books in the order they arrive but this one somehow slipped through the cracks and then happened to be the third book in a row about a road trip into some version of hell! Has that ever happened to you? I feel like it means something ominous like maybe I should stay on familiar roads now and forever!

 

 

Stolen Roads starts off when a boy and his parents are in a terrible car accident and the boy witnesses a monster sitting on his barely breathing dad’s chest. Flash forward a years and the boy is now grown but he still sees things. He’s been institutionalized so one never knows if this is real or imagined but he spends his days on the road searching for the stolen roads that lead to the monster things. His purpose in life is to track down the one particular beastie that murdered his family.

 

He probably should’ve left well enough alone but you know how these things go, right?  Kidd is described as having a high IQ and a low tolerance for reality so he’s different than me anyhow, haha. So when he meets a couple who say they know where to find the stolen road he hits the road with them, his slightly unstable friend Rose and a biker chick named Rita. All who apparently have a death wish too.

 

Sounds fun, right?

 

Surprisingly I found the first half of this book a little slow. There is a lot of character interaction but nothing very scary happens plot-wise. I suppose I am spoiled and was hoping for wall to wall monsters and bloodshed but this one takes its time and the mayhem doesn’t really happen until the story is about halfway through. Perhaps it is because I’ve read three of these books very recently but I’m thinking I would’ve felt the same at any other time because I am an impatient jerk like that. Once things got going they were wild though. There are some revolting monsters created here and some events take place that are so repulsive they’re funny in the darkest possible way. Or maybe it’s just me.  It’s too bad for me they didn’t happen much sooner.  There were also a few more characters added in the latter half that I wish we’d met sooner – especially Nacho. I loved Nacho.

 

So stick with it, the monsters and the madness will come!

 

This one gets a three from me for its knarly creatures and wacked out second half.