Book Review – The Forgotten Island by David Sodergren

Title: The Forgotten Island

Author: David Sodergren

Edition: Paperback

Page Count: 314 pages

Rating: 5 / 5 ✨✨✨✨✨

Short Summary:

When Ana Logan agrees to go on holiday to Thailand with her estranged sister Rachel, she hopes it will be a way for them to reconnect after years of drifting apart.
But now, stranded on a seemingly deserted island paradise with no radio and no food, reconciliation becomes a desperate fight for survival.
For when night falls on The Forgotten Island, the dark secrets of the jungle reveal themselves.
Something is watching them from the trees.
Something ancient.
Something evil.

Combining the cosmic horrors of HP Lovecraft with the grimy sensibilities of the Video Nasties, The Forgotten Island is an outrageous old-school horror novel packed with mayhem and violence.

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“It was the hellish sound of the forsaken, a high, gut-wrenching wail that split the darkness like a hatchet to the face.”

A couple of weeks ago, I picked this book up on a whim and decided to read the first chapter to get a feel for the author’s writing. I’d never read anything by him before, but due to the high amount of praise for him on bookstagram & Twitter, already owned both of his paperbacks. I was in bed in the middle of a day off, and ended up devouring the entire book in almost a single sitting, reading through the afternoon and into the evening. To say I was hooked is an understatement; I couldn’t put it down!

This is a perfect-for-summer horror read, which are some of my favorite types of horror books to read. I love the juxtaposition of sunshine, beaches, boats, & beers against the terror of island/jungle creatures and gore. And boy, does this one have a lot of gore! Once the violence starts, it doesn’t stop, and Sodergren’s writing does the viciousness the justice it so rightly deserves. This book is honestly such a treat for horror lovers, especially those who appreciate the specific veins of sort of B-movie slasher films & creature features.

One of the big things I loved about this was that it had a cast of characters that you didn’t completely root for – some of them were really terrible people, so watching bad things happen to them was really fun. Similarly, it added another layer to the story to be able to dislike a fellow character as much as disliking the “bad guy” of the overall story – or maybe a better way of putting it is that the story had both a regular dudebro bad guy as well as a more regular horror-book-esque one, which made the specific brand of horror here more multidimensional than in some other books.

I also really enjoyed the main character, Ana Logan. She was sort of brash, and very flawed, and it was great to read her dialogue especially. I had no idea the author was from Scotland before reading this, but the dialogue seemed so realistic and witty from her that I searched him up on the good ol’ internet, and what do you know? Bonus points for authenticity! Some of her thoughts or lines of dialogue with other characters made me actually laugh out loud while reading, and I love having a little comedy thrown into my horror, so this was perfect for me!

Overall, I’m very happy I decided to pick this one up, and have already made plans to read his newest one, Night Shoot. Definitely recommended, and I can’t wait to see what others he comes out with!