Hemlock Grove
Brian McGreevy

The body of a young girl is found mangled and murdered in the woods of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania, in the shadow of the abandoned Godfrey steel mill. A manhunt ensues - though the authorities aren't sure it's a man they should be looking for.
Some suspect an escapee from the White Tower, a foreboding biotech facility owned by the Godfrey family - their personal fortune and the local economy having moved on from Pittsburgh steel - where, if the rumors are true, biological experiments of the most unethical kind take place. Others turn to Peter Rumancek, a Gypsy trailer trash kid who has told impressionable high school classmates that he's a werewolf. Or perhaps it's Roman, the son of the late JR Godfrey, who rules the adolescent social scene with the casual arrogance of a cold blooded aristocrat, his superior status unquestioned despite his decidedly freakish sister, Shelley, whose monstrous medical conditions belie a sweet intelligence, and his otherworldly control freak of a mother, Olivia.

I don't think I've said this before, and I probably will never say this again... but if you're looking for the tale of Hemlock Grove, you might want to go with the Netflix series and not the novel. The series is good, of course it has the aid of Eli Roth to boost the story and screenwriters to do the writing. The novel, well, the story is good but the writing is not. The writing is immature and convoluted in many places. Since the one good thing about it is the plot, the reason I recommend the series is because the plot has the aid of talent behind it, while the novel does not.

There are sentences and even paragraphs that make no sense, even when reading them more than once. There are also many loose ends that are never tied up. Who or what is the Dragon? This is a theme that goes throughout the novel and is never answered. What, exactly, is Shelley besides something that was brought back unnaturally at the White Tower? Also a theme that is never answered. And what is project Ouroboros? The project seems to be almost as important as the main plot line of who is the werewolf that has gone insane - but is never answered. A good novel needs to answer the questions and plots that it brings up and not leave an audience hanging. There's one thing to have cliffhangers in a novel series, and another to just not explain crucial details of a stand alone novel.

It also might be nice to explain language used that the normal reader will not understand. The word Upir is used many times in relation to Roman, but is never fully explained. The best you get is at the ending there is a hint that an Upir might have something to do with a vampire.

Overall, this novel disappoints and doesn't explain much more than the series does. Actually, the series seems to explain more and that should not be.

I'd recommend this book only if you really want to read it after watching the series.

My rating: Three out of five snails.