The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away by Ronald L. Smith
Release: February 19th 2019
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Clarion Books
Source: Amazon
The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away Synopsis:
Twelve-year-old Simon is obsessed with aliens. The ones who take people and do experiments. When he’s too worried about them to sleep, he listens to the owls hoot outside. Owls that have the same eyes as aliens—dark and foreboding.
Then something strange happens on a camping trip, and Simon begins to suspect he’s been abducted. But is it real, or just the overactive imagination of a kid who loves fantasy and role-playing games and is the target of bullies and his father’s scorn?
Review:
Watch my video review of The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away by Ronald L. Smith!
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUZcS9DPfhc[/embedyt]
I picked up this book because I really liked the concept. It’s a creepy, science fiction, alien abduction story with a middle grade flair to it. When I started reading it, I liked the main character Simon and how he had a fascination for aliens and provided snippets of UFO sightings and alien related incidents that have occurred.
The author has written the story in a very dark and creepy way, similar to the old episodes of The Twilight Zone or Outer Limits. The story is very atmospheric. At times, I felt like I was reading a novel by Stephen King. The author also keeps the reader guessing as to whether Simon’s encounters are real, or if it just his imagination. I felt that the story had a lot of potential, but there were just other aspects in the book that made it very difficult to enjoy reading it.
The first and main problem I had with this story was the story within a story. While we read about what is going on in Simon’s life, Simon starts narrating his own story in alternate chapters, which we get to read. Even though there were moments where I found Simon’s written story more interesting that the main story, the shift between the main story and the narrated story was unnecessary and confusing. It is not at all related or connected to what Simon is experiencing, so I didn’t see the point of including it in the book. The author could have actually released the narrated story as a separate book because it had a lot of potential.
The second problem with the story is how it ended. The book is somewhat consistent in pacing for most, but takes a complete nosedive in the end. There is a constant buildup as to whether Simon is experiencing these things, or if it just in his head. But the story ends in a cliffhanger, and the epilogue following it just quickly covers and tries to provide closure in 2 pages for a buildup of 250 pages. I really dislike such books where the author wrap up everything in a hurry for whatever reason it may be.
And lastly, it’s Simon’s interactions with his family and friends. We really don’t get much closure or details of any of the supporting characters. Simon has issues with his father, but the author does not provide any closure for it. Simon’s friends Tony and Miranda help him in a few scenes, but again, we don’t get to know anything about them. It felt like all these characters just made a random appearance in the book and disappeared.
Overall, “The Owls have come to take us away” was disappointing to read and I would give it a rating of 2 out of 5 stars.
