Imagine a cult, where its leader has convinced your only family to leave their life for religious nonsense; where you have to live at a camp for the rest of your childhood, to give away your life to a religion enforced by a lunatic with the silver tongue?
This is the past of Allison, the girl who now lives in a foster home miles away from her original home. The setting is modern America, in Meridian as Allison and her childhood friends visit their hometown to gather for the funeral of a friend who would become the first of the victims of the story. The beginning of the killings start after the teenagers settle in a hotel, only to find that one of them died after the night. Slowly, one by one the others keep dying until Allison and David discover that not everything of the cult remained in the past, and a man was trying to kill them to use as martyrs for a religious catastrophe. The book ends in a negative tone implying that the world was consumed in fire.
One main theme of "the Unspoken" is: no matter how overbearing your past life may have been, one cannot simply run/move away and expect their problems to go away. At many points in the novel, Allison tries her best to simply forget about her old life, after moving with her foster parents. However, her dark past comes back in an email reporting about how her friend drowned with his body found miles inland. Then when the teens arrived in Meridian, they started dying one by one, only to find that the distance from their problems made no difference on how it affected them.
The fact that most of the story was set in Meridian gave way to many important parts of the book. The fact that the town was so isolated gave the novel a frightening element of the fear of having no one to help. The fact that the town was so small made the impression of brainwashed townspeople easier to portray. If the setting was to be a city, the author would have a harder time convincing the citizens of the area are brainwashed by a single man.
Allison is the protagonist of the story, and faces many challenges throughout the novel. Most of the story is told in third person through the experiences of Allison. Her conflicts include the overbearing memories of her unforgettable painful childhood memories, stubbornness of her childhood friends, and the man behind the deaths of her friends and the brainwashing of her childhood town. The conflicts changed her from a teen with regular problems in the beginning of the novel to a mature, realistic girl with a promising view of her future.
David is a secondary character in "the Unspoken". He faces his fears of his past and is forced to confront his fears again when he is buried alive for the second time near the end of the book. David is shown to have matured from an emotionally sensitive, dream hoarding individual, to a grown young man in a very stressful point in his life. He supports Allison in many of her ideas and acts.
The book starts with the prologue of the children huddled around as they watch a building burn to the ground, while apparently the building still contained the entirety of the cult by the name of the Divine Path. The story then shifts to Allison's life in the present, with her foster parents and her few high school friends. The story goes on with many flashbacks of the life before and during the brainwashing of most of the town of Meridian. Throughout the story, flashbacks are triggered by her own memories of certain events, Allison's epileptic seizures, or when the author is giving information on the dark history surrounding Allison's friends. The author often uses his syntax to instill fear into the heart of the reader, with quote such as "The mysterious man played the flute, rattling in the way he played. He slowly started moving towards Allison, moving as if she was going to be hunted."(pg. 67) Thomas Fahy even uses his syntax to show how the teens interacted in a realistic way, with quotes such as "I don't care what happens, I'm just going to get drunk tonight." The author also used his style of writing to portray a pessimistic ending, with the book ending with "And for a second, a split second, Allison thinks the world may not end after all." (pg.232)
The burning of the church building containing most of the cult was caused by the tensions on the children brought forth from the unrelenting abuse from the cult leader exploiting their every fear. It resulted in the teens being forced to move away from each other to foster homes scattered around the country. Most of the deaths of the teenagers were caused by an old acquaintance of the cult leader, leading up to the end of the book where the Earth was implied to have been burnt to a crisp. The cause of many of the fears in the teenagers in the novel was from the cult leader of the Divine Path, when he tortured the children to a point where the children could never overcome their fears.
(Source: http://www.amazon.com/The-Unspoken-Thomas-Fahy/dp/1416940081/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365132007&sr=8-1&keywords=the+unspoken+by+thomas+fahy)
I agree with the statement of, "he (Thomas Fahy) pulls out all the necessary stops as he constructs the terrifying story of what comes to pass five years later as the surviving teens are being murdered one by one, according to the cult leader's prophecy", as the story does in fact stop many times to set up the following acts which kill the teens according to their worst fears. I also agree with the statement, "The author gives readers gory visual descriptions of the crime scenes, tension-building cliffhangers and the type of unexpected surprises that if translated to film would make moviegoers scream, and he nails each device beautifully.", as the story is filled with scenes of extremely bloody deaths which would probably make a movie blockbuster. However, I do not agree with the statement, "A page-turner that just might keep readers up at night--especially given the loosely resolved ending.", as the ending of the story obviously implies that the story ended with the prophetic vision Allison had earlier in the book during her latest seizure. So, why would this book be of any importance to any reader? Well, the novel contains many of the classic elements which make up any great horror story, such as dark secrets which are only revealed over the span of the story. The story also contains many transcendental elements which make more sense to the reader as the story moves forward. "The Unspoken" is a good read for many young adults and teens who enjoy reading horror stories.
This is the past of Allison, the girl who now lives in a foster home miles away from her original home. The setting is modern America, in Meridian as Allison and her childhood friends visit their hometown to gather for the funeral of a friend who would become the first of the victims of the story. The beginning of the killings start after the teenagers settle in a hotel, only to find that one of them died after the night. Slowly, one by one the others keep dying until Allison and David discover that not everything of the cult remained in the past, and a man was trying to kill them to use as martyrs for a religious catastrophe. The book ends in a negative tone implying that the world was consumed in fire.
One main theme of "the Unspoken" is: no matter how overbearing your past life may have been, one cannot simply run/move away and expect their problems to go away. At many points in the novel, Allison tries her best to simply forget about her old life, after moving with her foster parents. However, her dark past comes back in an email reporting about how her friend drowned with his body found miles inland. Then when the teens arrived in Meridian, they started dying one by one, only to find that the distance from their problems made no difference on how it affected them.
The fact that most of the story was set in Meridian gave way to many important parts of the book. The fact that the town was so isolated gave the novel a frightening element of the fear of having no one to help. The fact that the town was so small made the impression of brainwashed townspeople easier to portray. If the setting was to be a city, the author would have a harder time convincing the citizens of the area are brainwashed by a single man.
Allison is the protagonist of the story, and faces many challenges throughout the novel. Most of the story is told in third person through the experiences of Allison. Her conflicts include the overbearing memories of her unforgettable painful childhood memories, stubbornness of her childhood friends, and the man behind the deaths of her friends and the brainwashing of her childhood town. The conflicts changed her from a teen with regular problems in the beginning of the novel to a mature, realistic girl with a promising view of her future.
David is a secondary character in "the Unspoken". He faces his fears of his past and is forced to confront his fears again when he is buried alive for the second time near the end of the book. David is shown to have matured from an emotionally sensitive, dream hoarding individual, to a grown young man in a very stressful point in his life. He supports Allison in many of her ideas and acts.
The book starts with the prologue of the children huddled around as they watch a building burn to the ground, while apparently the building still contained the entirety of the cult by the name of the Divine Path. The story then shifts to Allison's life in the present, with her foster parents and her few high school friends. The story goes on with many flashbacks of the life before and during the brainwashing of most of the town of Meridian. Throughout the story, flashbacks are triggered by her own memories of certain events, Allison's epileptic seizures, or when the author is giving information on the dark history surrounding Allison's friends. The author often uses his syntax to instill fear into the heart of the reader, with quote such as "The mysterious man played the flute, rattling in the way he played. He slowly started moving towards Allison, moving as if she was going to be hunted."(pg. 67) Thomas Fahy even uses his syntax to show how the teens interacted in a realistic way, with quotes such as "I don't care what happens, I'm just going to get drunk tonight." The author also used his style of writing to portray a pessimistic ending, with the book ending with "And for a second, a split second, Allison thinks the world may not end after all." (pg.232)
The burning of the church building containing most of the cult was caused by the tensions on the children brought forth from the unrelenting abuse from the cult leader exploiting their every fear. It resulted in the teens being forced to move away from each other to foster homes scattered around the country. Most of the deaths of the teenagers were caused by an old acquaintance of the cult leader, leading up to the end of the book where the Earth was implied to have been burnt to a crisp. The cause of many of the fears in the teenagers in the novel was from the cult leader of the Divine Path, when he tortured the children to a point where the children could never overcome their fears.
(Source: http://www.amazon.com/The-Unspoken-Thomas-Fahy/dp/1416940081/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365132007&sr=8-1&keywords=the+unspoken+by+thomas+fahy)
I agree with the statement of, "he (Thomas Fahy) pulls out all the necessary stops as he constructs the terrifying story of what comes to pass five years later as the surviving teens are being murdered one by one, according to the cult leader's prophecy", as the story does in fact stop many times to set up the following acts which kill the teens according to their worst fears. I also agree with the statement, "The author gives readers gory visual descriptions of the crime scenes, tension-building cliffhangers and the type of unexpected surprises that if translated to film would make moviegoers scream, and he nails each device beautifully.", as the story is filled with scenes of extremely bloody deaths which would probably make a movie blockbuster. However, I do not agree with the statement, "A page-turner that just might keep readers up at night--especially given the loosely resolved ending.", as the ending of the story obviously implies that the story ended with the prophetic vision Allison had earlier in the book during her latest seizure. So, why would this book be of any importance to any reader? Well, the novel contains many of the classic elements which make up any great horror story, such as dark secrets which are only revealed over the span of the story. The story also contains many transcendental elements which make more sense to the reader as the story moves forward. "The Unspoken" is a good read for many young adults and teens who enjoy reading horror stories.
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