The Association by Bentley Little (CBR-IV #40)

Cannonball Read IV: Book #40/52
Published: 2001
Pages: 448
Genre: Horror

I can't believe I'm already on book 40 for this year! I'm on much better track than last year when I had to read about 10 books in December to get caught up. 

So, The Association is a schlocky little horror novel. I was actually surprised to see that it was published in 2001 because it just screams of cheesy 80's horror. I've read one or two of Bentley Little's books before, so luckily I wasn't expecting a masterpiece. 

The plot is pretty simple: a couple moves into a gated community in Utah called Bonita Vista and everything is awesome until the homeowner's association keeps getting increasingly bothersome with their crazy rules. I decided to read this book because I had never really heard of homeowner's associations growing up because I lived out in the country. Now that I live in southern California, I get a kick out seeing some of the stupid rules they come up in the HOA (one place we lived wouldn't let you put up curtains unless the backs of them were white). Fortunately, those rules seem perfectly normal compared to the HOA in this book.

At first, Barry and Maureen are just mildly annoyed by some of the rules (or C, C, & R's, as the HOA in the book calls them). No pets of any kind, no working out of the house (Barry is a writer, so he has to rent an office in town), things like that. They become friends with their neighbors who also aren't too keen on the HOA rules. 

Eventually the rules just become insane. Only married couples allowed to live together. No one is allowed to have kids. No residents or visiters that are not Caucasian. People who break the rules or defy the association seem to have a habit of disappearing or dying suddenly. 

Like I said, it's a cheesy horror novel. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Death Instinct by Bentley Little

Goodreads Summary: "Cathy was six when the man next door killed his wife and himself. She heard the screams. She saw the blood and the bodies. Now, 20 years later, the house is no longer vacant. Someone new has moved in. Something terrible is happening to the neighbors. And Cathy has a secret of her own."

I liked:

-The deaths were INSANE. If you've ever read Bentley Little, he's written some pretty messed up stuff. This book would have been straight up detective/thriller if he didn't throw in the gory murder scenes. They were definitely creative though.

-Very suspenseful in spite of the predictable killer reveal. It wasn't just about who was the killer. I wanted to know why those neighbors were so creepy (although when the full creepiness of them was revealed, it was a little too much) and why Cathy's dad was such a jerk. There were definitely lots of reasons to keep reading.


I didn't like:

-The killer was pretty predictable. I had it figured out pretty early on so I thought maybe they just threw in a red herring to throw us off...but nope. It was exactly who I thought.

-It kind of annoys me when books skip around between too many characters. Like when a chapter ends with a character in a compromising position, then the next chapter starts with a totally different character doing something normal. Then you have to wait a few chapters to find out what happened to the other character.

-I didn't feel like they fully associated the former killings in the neighborhood to the present killings. Why bother alluding to the neighborhood's past then not bother trying to connect it to the present?

All in all, I'd give it 4/5 stars, mainly for the awesomely creative murders.