The Cabin at the End of the World – Paul Tremblay

Overview

London, February 2019

Seven-year-old Wen is playing at the front of the holiday home she is staying at with her parents, Eric and Andrew. A stranger appears at the the end of the garden. He’s friendly and helps her to catch the grasshopper she’s occupied with. She’s wary of the stranger and has reason to be as he’s soon joined by three more strangers though each wields a frightening weapon. Soon enough, Wen and her parents are prisoners to the four self-made prophets who have arrived to deliver the message that there must be a murder within the family to avert the end of the world.

Thoughts

Despite the limited world of the novel – it all takes place within one room of the holiday home – the story moves at a decent pace with enough intrigue and character development to keep it going.

Beyond the set-up, events are quite scarce (and quite gory) and my only disappointment was that we didn’t learn anything of the prophets, who they were sent by or what happened beyond what seems to have been the beginning of the apocalypse.

Rating