“The Anomaly”

Don't be afraid of the dark.

I went into this book thinking it would be like Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider/The Descent, but dang was I disappointed. The Anomaly by Michael Rutger is presented as a Horror/Thriller that resembles "Indiana Jones during the X-Files era." Maybe it's just me not ever having seen the X-Files (I know, I know). But I just wasn't very impressed. First off, the main character, Nolan Moore, is a pretentious archaeologist who is the host of an online documentary series called "The Anomaly Files." You're not really told much about it or given any examples of previous episodes of this doc so you aren't really that attached to it. The story basically is about him and his crew going into the Grand Canyon to search for what is known as Kincaid Cavern, a mysterious cave system that possibly holds ancient origin secrets. But, **spoiler alert** this is the most boring cave system you could think of. I don't want to go into too much detail and spoil the story but when I got to the explanation of the cavern I was just like,"...what?" and not in a good way. I was very underwhelmed with the characters, plot, and overall story that was told in this novel. It took me forever to finish this, I read about halfway through and stopped and picked it up a few months later.

Since this one was kind of a blah one for me, I was hoping the second novel in the series might be more up my alley. That one is The Possession, following the events of The Anomaly, Nolan Moore and his crew investigate a case of witchcraft and possession in a small village in the woods. That one sounds way spookier. I'm pretty excited to read it. Stay tuned.

3/5 stars