 Hi there. Today on Typical Books I'm going to talk about Red by Jack Ketchum. It is a typical book. Now Red by Jack Ketchum is part of the Horror in 24 read-a-thon TBR that I chose because it had Red on the cover. I had chosen other books. I chose The Shadows and Tall Trees Volume 8 because it had Red on the cover and would be psychological but Rebecca fulfilled the want for a psychological horror story and Red definitely has Red on the cover. I'm being a little too literal here but hey it's an excellent book and it was a great find so I could not include it. Now Red by Jack Ketchum isn't necessarily a horror story and if you have read Jack Ketchum books in the past then you may be familiar with the idea that he often chooses true crime stories and it's got a true crime feel whether it's an amalgamation of existing true crime stories or he's retelling one like he does in The Girl Next Door. Now Red I don't know if it's true and it could be the sort of thing that you hear about on the local news in a small town that would definitely make the papers. It wouldn't make the papers in national news that's for sure unless there was something really specifically intriguing about this or the families involved. Now it is sort of Avery Ludlow versus the McCormick Clan so it is Hatfields and McCoys in a way. It is about this man who's out fishing with his dog and these two young teenage boys show up with a third friend of theirs and a gun. They shoot the dog and that is not a spoiler it happens in the very first few pages and it is trying. It is in the description in the back and it is the premise of the movie and the book goes on from there. The story is a revenge story. Now it is refreshing in one way and this may sound callous that it isn't a revenge story that deals with rape. It is a revenge story that has to do with men and women's best friend a dog and I am myself I'm a dog owner and I am a dog and pet and animal lover so it's not that I'm saying this from a point of view of somebody who does not care for animals but I'm not turned away by the animal cruelty because it is the plot of this book that said those who dislike animal cruelty could probably enjoy this story if they skipped no they couldn't they could not enjoy this they can't skip the first chapter and enjoy this there's no way no how there's no way this would be too this would be traumatic to read it is heart wrenching it is very hard to read the mentions of animals because the single atrocity that takes place at the beginning does get revisited and talked about throughout the book so it's not something that happens once and is referred to in hash tones this is the driving force behind this book so if you don't like animal cruelty if you have a trouble with jack ketchum's writing if you find it's just too gritty this doesn't shy away from that it may not be about humans on human crime and horrible crimes committed against women which this is an earlier book by jack ketchum it came out in 97 and was subsequently re-released made into a film so if you've seen the film I'm not sure how it treats the animal cruelty in that I still have yet to see it but it sounds awfully brutal and if it's positioned here the same as it is in the book then it will be brutal as hell I did have a friend once who had watched the ring on my recommendation at the remake of the ring and they got kind of angry in that there is animal cruelty there is the the horse on the ferry scene and it stuck with him and it scarred him he tried to look away it happened so quickly it was it hurt him very deeply so I can commiserate with those who are touched by animal cruelty so maybe avoid red at all costs at that same respect it is well written I give this a 4.5 it scores a 91 on the book score and that is because it's written so very well the dialogue is very very believable I grew up in a smaller town and this transports me directly to the street corner in the small town that creek where he's fishing the farmhouse at night like it's done very very well the conversations people have are very believable now a lot of the characters are very one note but that again is the realism aren't we all just a little one note sometimes especially when we have something like what Ave I'm not sure how to pronounce the shortened form of Avery what Avery Bloodlow has on his plate right now might be the problems he's having with his business the problems he's having being terrorized by the McCormick clan or their counterparts and friends or just trying to battle a legal battle that maybe he's ill prepared for or maybe he's thinking in terms of black and white he's brought a little bit of the Korean war back with him it seems and not in a bad way in a very good way in a Sun Tzu art of war sort of way so if you like a good revenge tale then red is for you so red is almost the last book I'm reading for horror in 24 I am about a third of the way through Survivor Song and I'm enjoying it quite a lot I didn't enjoy paying on nearly twenty dollars for the e-book but be that as it may it's a good book it's a good read there are a few other readalongs that I was thinking of participating in but the sting is just too deep for paying that much for a new book so I'm going to just take a break on new books for a while besides I've got a lot of nice used books to get to so the next review will be the wrap up including Paul Tromblay's Survivor Song for horror in 24 and I've picked up let's go play at the atoms and I've also got of course behind the horror by Dr. Lee Miller to read so there'll be some cool stuff coming up book wise and film wise I have a great conversation with my friend Amy Vosper that I'm just editing at this moment now so you'll have another coffin talk with the glamour ghoul and typical Lydia coming up it's a two-hour-ish conversation about 80s horror and the 80s themed horror that we're seeing a lot of now and specifically how kids and bikes save the neighborhood time and time again and why and how and who those kids grew up to be so it's a pretty cool conversation so I'm looking forward to having that air also trying to figure out how to bring or when to bring or if to bring my a-to-c of horror over from TikTok to YouTube those very eagle-eyed watchers might have noticed that I also have started streaming on Twitch not very seriously I play Diablo I like Sims from the goth mansion perspective and I also do play some horror games so I'll probably be streaming on my lunch hours here and there and on the weekends I don't know if I've established a schedule probably not it'll probably be catches catch can but hey if you're a twitch fan then you can check me out there thank you very much for watching if you've read red if you've read red if you've read red if you've read red let me know what you think in the comments below above I'll make sure that you and yours have an oaky spooky day