This week, I read The Forbidden Game series. I'm a bit older than its intended audience, but I wanted to read it because L.J. Smith wrote it and I loved The Secret Circle books when I was in high school. The plot sounded interesting enough, so I figured, why not?
The three books are The Hunter, The Chase and The Kill. For the sake of not spoiling the second and third books, I'll only disclose the plot of The Hunter. Jenny is a high school student with a popular boyfriend and she is way too invested in pleasing him. What? It's true. On his birthday, she goes to a dangerous part of town just to find a game worthy of this imbecile. Two guys begin following her, so she ducks into the nearest building which just happens to be...Tada! A store that sells games. (Is it worth almost getting mugged just to get a game for her boyfriend?)
Inside, she finds all kinds of unique games, but the boy working there (who is apparently devastatingly handsome in a terrifying kind of way), ends up selling her a game that comes in a white box with no details about what is inside. Jenny takes the game home and waits for her friends and her dimwitted boyfriend, Tom, to arrive.
The game as it turns out, involves setting up a doll house. Each player has to color in a doll to represent themselves and then write their worst nightmare on a piece of paper. The object of the game is to go through each room of the house, living all the nightmares, and eventually getting to the top floor where they will win the game. Oddly enough, there is a doll included with the game that looks just like the boy Jenny met in the store.
Before playing, everyone has to swear an oath that they understand the game is real and they can actually die in it. Not really taking it seriously, they all swear to it...And wake up in a replica of the doll house. Julian, the boy from the game store, is there. As it turns out, he's not a boy, but a Shadow Man. Not quite a demon, but definitely not a human. He has created this entire ruse because he has been in love with Jenny "forever" (forever is eleven years) and he wants to keep her. He tells Jenny that if she can win the game, she will have her freedom, but if not, she belongs to him. And from there, Jenny and her friends have to make their way through each nightmare, fighting to survive.
This is a fantasy horror novel. Centering around a romance that is so dysfunctional...It makes me physically sick. And I'm not talking about Jenny and Julian. Because Julian at least has an excuse. He may be a creepy stalker, but it's not really his fault. He can't help what he is. He doesn't live by human rules, he doesn't know how to behave like a human. He was created (yes, created, not born) as a Shadow Man, it's in his nature to be malevolent and destructive. Still, for all his faults, he's not as bad as he likes to think he is. He's not human, but there's still something very human about him. And he loves Jenny for who she is. His love for her is surprisingly pure.
No, Julian doesn't sicken me. Tom does. He is possessive and controlling. He tells Jenny how to dress (in long skirts), how not to dress (in a form-fitting gold dress), how to wear her hair (in a ponytail)...Are you kidding me? It's like he tries to keep her covered up because he's afraid other people will see her legs or something if her skirt isn't dragging on the floor. So what? He's just a giant red flag walking around with a "kick me" sign on his back. He's bland, no personality. And he essentially tries to push Jenny away even after she tells him repeatedly that she wants him, not Julian. Go sulk in the corner, Tommy, because everyone hates you. I was actually cheering Julian on throughout the entire series. The villain. Something is very wrong when you want the villain to win.
I never got the sense that Jenny loved Tom. She seemed to feel obligated to him. He was comfortable, familiar. And he has all the characteristics of a future abusive psychopath, so he probably drilled it into her head at some point that she needed him. There was no passion with him like there was with Julian.
Aside from my hatred for Tom, I actually did enjoy these books. I probably would have liked them more if I had read them when I was younger, but they had a really interesting idea behind them and even though it could have been better (the first book felt very rushed), overall it was a fun series. If done correctly, I think it would actually make a really good movie trilogy. But it would have to be handled carefully because it could easily run into B-horror territory and it's better than that.
The ending of the series was given away quite early on in the third book. I caught it right away and then spent the rest of the book muttering all kinds of things under my breath because I was distraught.
Before I end this post, the first book, The Hunter, had a lot of Lovecraftian themes in it. It even mentions "Old Ones" at one point. It put me on edge. This part is what reminded me most of his work.
Vampires, aliens, werewolves, ghouls, they were all nothing. Stories made up to hide the real fear.
The terror that came in the darkness, the one that everyone knew about, and everyone forgot. Only sometimes, waking up between dreams, did the full realization hit. And even if it was remembered it was dismissed the next morning. The knowledge couldn't survive in daylight. But at night sometimes people glimpsed the truth. That humans weren't alone.
They shared the world with them.
I don't know if this intentional. Is L.J. Smith a Lovecraft fan? I appreciated it regardless.
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