“We Sold Our Souls” follows Kris Pulaski. Kris is 47 and after a hellish night working at a motel realizes that her life has a hole in it that she never got back after her band Dürt Würk broke up in the 90s. Kris starts see billboards and ads that her former bandmate Terry is about to put on an epic show. And this makes Kris wonder what happened all of those years ago and what caused her band that was about to make it big, break up.
Well, I don’t know. I think this is honestly a 3.5 star book. It dragged way too much and it felt like at one point we just got bad song lyrics (you all know how I feel about bad poetry in horror novels…apparently I dislike bad lyrics too). I don’t do half stars on sites, so this is a 4 star with a wobble honestly.
I really wanted to love this. Give me metal. Give me Kris and her bandmates. Give me Kris on her quest to stop the Blind King. But it was just a mess after a while. You get some really good horror moments I thought, but there were too many holes for me after a while that never got wrapped. Hendrix I realize is a solid horror author, but sometimes I think that the book goes down one path and then there is not a reference to something you would expect to show up or be referenced again. And I wanted more explanation for things. I am not a fan of info-dumps but way too many question marks were left in my head after I finished this one.
The other bandmates don’t really get developed outside of Tuck and Bill. I wish we had spent more time with them all. We do get Terry and his friendship with Kris right away and I think that part was really good. But I wish we had gotten more insight into the whole “night of the contract” thing and a glimpse of that person. It just felt like it came out of nowhere.
I do have to say that the highlights for me outside of the little asides we get between chapters of radio shows, articles, and even police reports, was following the book via the eyes of the character of Melanie.
The plot such as it is makes sense though, but I think that the follow through wasn’t there the way I think it could have been as I said above.
I honestly didn’t find the ending satisfying at all. I know it was done to echo the beginning of the book, but I wish that it had been used to actually wrap up everyone’s story.
I read this for CBR17bingo, “Purple”, this is for row 2, square 2.