“A tremendous book―thought-provoking and terrifying, with tension that winds up like a chain. The Cabin at the End of the World is Tremblay’s personal best. It’s that good.” — Stephen KingThe Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A Head Full of Ghosts adds an inventive twist to the home invasion horror story in a heart-palpitating novel of psychological suspense that recalls Stephen King’s Misery… the home invasion horror story in a heart-palpitating novel of psychological suspense that recalls Stephen King’s Misery, Ruth Ware’s In a Dark, Dark Wood, and Jack Ketchum’s cult hit The Girl Next Door.
Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road.
One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, “None of what’s going to happen is your fault”. Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: “Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world.”
Thus begins an unbearably tense, gripping tale of paranoia, sacrifice, apocalypse, and survival that escalates to a shattering conclusion, one in which the fate of a loving family and quite possibly all of humanity are entwined. The Cabin at the End of the World is a masterpiece of terror and suspense from the fantastically fertile imagination of Paul Tremblay.
“Read Paul Tremblay’s new novel, The Cabin at the End of the World, and you might not sleep for a week. Longer. It will shape your nightmares for months – that’s pretty much guaranteed.” — NPR
“Gripping, horrifying, and mesmerizing.” — GQ
“A tour-de-force of psychological and religious horror.” — BN.com
“A blinding tale of survival and sacrifice.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Tremblay has a real winner here.” — Tor.com
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Love this author. His plots are original, keeps you turning the page and the element of suspense is always just right
I instantly fell in love with this book. It takes a close look at today’s divided society and asks us to figure out what’s really important: love or our beliefs?
At times heart-wrenching and terrifying, The Cabin at the End of the World contains beautiful prose, well-conceived characters, and the struggle between what we’re taught to believe versus reality.
Would you put your faith in people who claim to be God’s messengers, even if that meant destroying everything you hold dear? Or would you do anything for those you love, no matter who else suffered because of it? By the ambiguous ending (which is perfect, in my opinion), you’ll be asked to examine and answer all of these questions.
This is by far my favorite horror book of the year. It’s intelligent, thought-provoking, and unafraid to use today’s landscape to make a point.
If this book makes you feel uncomfortable or disappointed, you might just be one of the people that the author was clearly referencing (Jeff O’Bannon was my favorite political nod – Jeff Sessions and Steve Brannon, anyone?), ranging from zealots to bigots to people who think authors shouldn’t put their personal beliefs into their work.
Alternatively, you may just prefer books that spell everything out for you with a concrete ending that wraps the story up with a neatly tied bow. But if that’s what you want, you won’t find it here. Sadly, that could cause you to miss out on this year’s finest horror offering.
A novel about the clash of rational and irrational, hatred and violence, prophecies and religion gone mad, and perhaps hope. The Cabin at the End of the World is a terrific, disturbing, desperate novel, one that profoundly reflects the current political climate of North America and our ambiguous times.
I don’t recommend this book. I just wanted to be finished reading it.
What could have been a good suspense turned out to be painfully tedious. Two fathers and their adopted daughter are held captive inside their cabin by four fatalist strangers who insist one of them must be sacrificed to prevent the end of humanity. From there, it just gets laboriously tedious and senseless.
The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay is terrifying, violent, and poignant; and an end of the world book unlike anything I have ever read.
What it’s about: Seven-year-old Wen and her dads Eric and Andrew are on a vacation at a remote cabin by a lake in New Hampshire. One afternoon as Wen is outside catching grasshoppers, a man called Leonard walks up and starts talking to her. He seems younger, friendly and nice so Wen talks to him and he helps her catch grasshoppers. All of a sudden 3 other people walk up carrying strange weapons and Leonard turns to Wen and says, “Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world.”
No more else about the plot from me! That is what the author wants people to know, and I do admit it was what had me so interested in the book in the first place. The blurb doesn’t tell you a whole lot, and I think it is both a good and bad thing in this case.
The Cabin at the End of the World really was not what I was expecting at all, and it ended up being very biblical, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse kind of stuff. Which I guess I don’t really have a problem with, it just took me by surprise and I’m not sure I liked it. I was very frustrated while reading, and even though it was a fairly quick read, the violence and drawn out scenes really started to get to me after awhile.
Final Thought: I want to keep this brief because I don’t want to give anything away, but I would still recommend this to fans of horror and end of the world books that have a biblical theme to them. This book just wasn’t really what I needed or wanted right now and wasn’t my favorite. I would definitely still read other books by Tremblay though, and look forward to reading some of his backlog!
Apacolypse. Weird.
After reading A Head Full of Ghosts, this book was exhausting to get through. read A Head Full of Ghosts but skip this one. Not worth the time it takes to get through it.
This book has no closure. It’s like he forgot to send in the last chapter to be published. The book was good and kept me reading in fear for the family and then abruptly ended without finishing. I have so many unanswered questions that I wish I had never read the book. So disappointing!
I disliked it after I read the first chapter. And I am disappointed that I spent what I did to download it. I would not recommend this book for any one and certainly not pay money for it.
This is a book about a hostage situation. Why did it happen and how will it end?
I finished this book a few days ago and can’t get it out of my mind. What is truth and how does each side act when they each think that they alone have the truth
In one word: Powerful.
To say more:
This is a book that keeps you guessing, keeps you hoping, keeps you yelling, and in the end, just plain keeps with you. The characters are superbly crafted and the relationships exquisite, and no matter where the story leads, no choices are clear cut, none are easy, and none are without ramifications. This book will be rattling around in my head for some time.
The only reason I gave it 4 stars (and I’d do 4.5 if I could), is that the start unfortunately didn’t reel me in. Yet, once I was hooked there was no turning back. I highly recommend it.
This one kept me reading. I finished it in one day because I wanted to know what would happen next.
I kept hoping this would get better, but in the end I found it (like many reviewers have said) to be very unsatisfying. The only reason I stuck with this through to the end was for a resolution that just never came. I’m not sure if it should have been shorter or longer – but unfortunately – one of the authors I really enjoy missed the mark here
I didn’t know what to expect when I picked this one up. That all changed as soon as I read the first page. Instantly gripped by the setup and I am being purposely vague as I want you to have the same experience I did. Definitely check it out. I will definitely be looking more into Paul G Tremblay’s previous and future works.
I loved the book. It had so many twist it kept me guessing until the end. Even the ending left me wondering.
What this book lacks in pace, it makes up for in suspense, fear, and the unexplained. I appreciated how the parents were depicted as any other heterosexual parent. That is not the interesting part of the story but it made the characters more real for me and more believable. The group that holds the family hostage is the best part of this book. I found them to be just as tragic as the situation the family finds themselves suddenly in. Their mystery is strange and difficult to believe, and at the same time to be too obviously miraculous to avoid. I found the dialogue to be weak and okay. The conclusion is super action packed and keeps your heart racing as the stakes keep getting higher. This was a good recommendation and a fun read.
A dark and tense home invasion story turned theological introspection on blind faith and martyrdom.
Tremblay created an engaging story which ratchets up the tension and mystery nicely, with good nuanced character work in the likeable leads and intriguing antagonists trapped within this potentially apocalyptic test of faith.
*My main gripe was something which should have been picked up by his editor, and that is the random and increasingly frequent switch between third and first-person perspectives from paragraph to paragraph in the latter pages of the novel.
Or was this some bizarre intent by the author which I failed to grasp?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3228564583?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
Clever