Rating:
5/5 Eerie Paintings
This is the second of Adam Nevill's books where a depiction of dying old and alone has been so wretched that I've wanted to re write my will. I'm a massive haunted house fan - however it often seems the genre's been done, making it difficult for stories to strike out in any new direction. Apartment 16 confirms that rather than trailblazing, it's best instead to just skillfully & viscerally immerse your reader in what you're doing. Anybody who's ever lived in a city or loathed humanity's idiotic brutality will identify with this story all too easily, but the blue ribbon goes to the depictions of purgatory. J G Ballard toyed with the idea that transmogrification of the flesh transfigures the mind, but in Apartment 16 insanity is the dreadful and INEVITABLE consequence of being bereft of one's fleshy shell. Reading about that fate alone should be enough to drive you back toward the land of the living.