The Turning by Francine Prose

The Turning by Francine Prose

Review of The Turning

Title & Author:
The Turning by Francine Prose
Publisher:
HarperTeen
Publication Date:
September 25, 2012
Pages:
256
Source:
BEA

Jack is babysitting for the summer on an isolated island with no Wi-Fi, no cell service, and no one else around but a housekeeper and two very peculiar children. He immediately senses something sinister-and it’s not just the creepy black house he’s living in. Soon he is feeling terribly isolated and alone, but then he discovers there are others. The problem is, he’s the only who can see them. As secrets are revealed and darker truths surface, Jack desperately struggles to maintain a grip on reality. He knows what he sees, and he isn’t crazy…Or is he?

Where does reality end and insanity begin? The Turn of the Screw reinvented for modern-day teens, by National Book Award finalist Francine Prose. – Goodreads

I haven’t read Turn of the Screw, but I had pretty mixed feelings towards The Turning by Francine Prose. I’m a huge fan of YA horror/thriller/mystery/creepy so I dove into The Turning with high expectations.

And I enjoyed a lot of The Turning. I really enjoyed the format at first – it’s not very often that you find a young adult book written in the epistolary format. But the thing about the epistolary format is that we basically get everything directly from Jack’s point of view, which means a lot of telling. I felt like a lot of the atmosphere and creep factor was lost because we only got it through Jack telling Sophie, rather than being immersed in the story ourselves.

The Turning was an interesting story, but by no means necessarily a surprising one. I really liked witnessing Jack’s descent into madness and there were a lot of creepy moments throughout The Turning, but as a whole, it didn’t really stand out to me compared to some other YA horror.

I think I might have enjoyed The Turning by Francine Prose more if it wasn’t written in the epistolary format, but again, I’m torn because I did really like the it at first. The ending of The Turning left me with lots of thoughts and questions, so if you’ve read it, I’d love to discuss it!

I don’t have an overall paragraph for this review. I’m still kind of processing how I felt about The Turning by Francine Prose. The Turning was an interesting and super quick read read, one that I think is worth a shot if you’re into the creepy horror stuff, but I’m still trying to nail down my final feelings.

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