We Will Rise by Tim Waggoner

​I kind of seem to remember liking Waggoner’s work back in the day. But tastes change. Optimally, evolve. Mine did. Which reading his work now just…not acceptable.
Mind you, it is very much an acquired taste sort of thing and will likely work for some genre fans – it just depends on what you’re looking for, what you’re reading for.
If you like your scares deeply steeped in gore, guts, and viscera…then by all means.
If you prefer strong writing, sustained psychological suspense, a well-crafted atmosphere, cleverness, good compelling characters, etc…pass this by. Wish I did.
Waggoner goes with gore, in favor of all other elements. Severe, baby exploding sort of gore. Which, if you’re not really into it, just comes across as gross and vulgar.
And if you are really into it…well, that’s kind of alarming in its own right. But hey, you got company – just look a the other reviews of this.
Anyway…the basic plot here is that the dead are coming back to life and doing terrible things to the living. That’s it. That’s how the book was probably sold. Although you’d hope Flame Tree Press would have a more sophisticated taste.
Should one be able to describe a book simply? Well, maybe a book like this.
There’s a bunch of characters, each of them introduced as a separate storyline only to have them converge at the end. Waggoner’s character writing isn’t very good. (Neither is his writing in general, though he’s been at it for so long, he can probably churn out schlock like this in his sleep.) The stiltedness and triteness of the first chapters demonstrates this especially. Almost amateurish. And very, very basic. So basic that a racist bigoted and all-around prejudiced character is named Karen.
Anyway, he goes for quantity over quality, so you end up with too many characters of low to no engaging factors. And then…guts and gore.
Overall, disgusting. And a total waste of time. Thanks Netgalley.