[Reviews] - The Ritual
The Ritual
Steve Stred
This book was self-published.
Escalation. Man, this book oozes escalation. Our main character is preparing for a coming event, a day in the not so distant future where all his diligent work and loyalty will pay off. As the day approaches the tension scales. As the day approaches the blurriness of the overall picture clarifies. As the day approaches, we move out of our comfortable positions and closer to the edge of our seats.
The story is about an extremely religious man, Brad. He has been anointed the chosen one to serve a specific purpose for his church, his fellow congregation members. The book starts off with a feeling of your base evangelical followers, just a guy taking his religion a little too seriously maybe. Of course, like I said, escalation. The obsessive bible reading scales to self-flagellation and further into extreme abuse by the congregation's leader (Father).
For me - I was enthralled in the first half or so of this novella. There was no supernatural demonic force at play. We were live witnessing hive mind, brainwashing, sickening religious zealotry and the true human villainy and ugly actions that can be perpetuated in the name of a god.
I don't really want to go much into what I consider the second act. It would be hard to do without giving stuff away. Let's just say that there is more at play than your standard cult story. The villains in this loom much larger than your average narcissistic cult leader. There are ancient powers that WILL be appeased.
Back to the main point here. ESCALATION, You are yanked along, you feel it physically through the narrative. For me personally, I was more about the horror of insanely extreme religiosity than the real cosmic hellish forces.
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Link to purchase: https://bookshop.org/books/ritual-9781695441590/9781695441590
Review by Well Read Beard
Twitter: @WellReadBeard
I purchased this book for review consideration.