Reseña del libro "Reprieve (en Inglés)"
On 27 April 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room made famous for its monstrosities. If the group can endure its horrors without shouting the safe word, 'reprieve', they'll win a substantial cash prize - a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house's long history. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants.
Those who were present on that fateful night lend their points of view: Kendra Brown, a teenager uprooted from her childhood home after the loss of her father; Leonard Grandton, a hotel manager caught in a series of toxic entanglements; and Jaidee Charoensuk, a gay international student who came to the US in search of his former English teacher. As each character's journey unfurls, deceits and misunderstandings fuelled by obsession and prejudice are revealed - forcing all to reckon with the ways in which their beliefs and actions contributed to a horrifying catastrophe.
A startlingly soulful exploration of complicity and masquerade, Reprieve combines the psychological tension of classic horror with searing social criticism, and seamlessly threads together trial transcripts, evidence descriptions, and deeply layered individual narratives to present a chilling portrait of American life.
MEDIA REVIEWS
Reprieve is a horror novel, albeit one that twists up the form in delightful ways . . . A skilful and gripping piece of storytelling - Guardian
A horror tale and a Franzenesque multistranded literary novel that are interwoven . . . the latter turning the haunted house into a metaphor for America . . . Reprieve is brilliantly conceived and unsettling - Sunday Times
This genre-savvy horror thriller is an assured, ambitious debut … A smart and troubling book that feels very relevant in 2021 - SFX
I raced through this beautifully written literary thriller . . . A fascinating exploration of privilege and power within a tight framework of plot points heading towards an uneasy denouement - Daily Mail
A chilling blend of horror and thriller that explores racism and the desperate desire to belong with skin-crawling exactitude . . . Clever, insightful and unnerving - Observer
This eerie novel about a death inside a full-contact escape room stretches the genre to eye-opening degrees - Entertainment Weekly
Straddles genres in the best possible way . . . Sure to spark conversation and debate at book clubs across the land - LA Times
Mattson crafts a nail-biting horror saga while also implicating us in our sick obsession with horror. So too does the novel evoke blistering social horror, forcing us to reckon with how racism, prejudice, and complicity are more horrifying—and more fatal—than anything that goes bump in the night. Unrelenting and unforgettable, Reprieve is an American classic in the making - Esquire
