The Gates Review

The Gates By John Connolly

★★★★☆

The Gates by John Connolly was a great book. I got this book after meeting John Connolly at Borders. When he walked into the store I had no idea who he was, I just thought he was another customer. The next thing I knew he was at the customer service desk signing the entire stack of his books. I ended up talking to him. He was so down to earth and easy to talk to and very funny! After meeting him I decided I would read one of his books and ended up picking this one. It took me a while to finally get to reading it. I found out he is having a reading Tuesday 11/15/11 at the University of Southern Maine so I finally sat down and read it. I have to say meeting an author and having them be really nice and down to earth like Josh Connolly was when I met him can make someone want to pick up their books. I probably would never have picked this book up if it wasn’t for that, but I’m glad I did because I was not disappointed.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book but I was surprised by any standards. The author added a nice touch by adding footnotes throughout the book giving the reader further information and most of the time resulting in making me laugh. The author has a way with words that brought a smile to my face and just made me laugh out loud. This was a very fun book to read. He created a great voice in the story. The reader is also able to see multiple different points of views in the story so you get to see closer glimpses to different characters. I enjoyed this, it even had me feeling for the demon Nurd.

The story follows a very intelligent boy named Samuel Johnson and his dog. Samuel is a unique boy and decided to start Halloween early. He starts and ends his attempt to do so at the Abernathy’s house. After Mr. Abernathy shuts the door in Samuels face he goes back to his wife and friends and accidently opens a portal that a strong demon comes out and takes over Mrs. Abernathy’s body and more demons come and take over the bodies of Mr. Abernathy and his friends. Samuel sees this though a window and when he decided to run away Mrs. Abernathy sees him. Now she is after Samuel and no one will believe him when he tries to tell what he saw. It is up to Samuel to stop hell on earth from happening because he is the only one that knows.