Misfits

Hunter Shea never fails to entertain and surprise me with his books. His stories usually entail cryptozoological creatures and are often gory and graphic. Misfits definitely fits his M.O. but Shea takes it to a whole new level with this tale. He has mentioned MelonHeads in other books to a lesser degree (I am sure it was Shea. Who else would use the word, "MelonHead"?) but this book is specifically about these horrific inbred monstrosities and the misunderstood loner teens called "misfits" who havethe misfortune to get on the MelonHeads bad side. I love reading horror fiction but it doesn't scare me... usually. I don't leap from long distances to the bed to avoid the inevitable thing lurking under the bed or the creatures that come out when I turn off the light. There was just something about how Shea described the sense of dread waiting for these hideous creatures to suddenly jump out and tear people limb from limb and maybe the fact that these are not supernatural creatures but are aberrant humans. One thing that surprised me the most was how much I liked the main characters. A horror story often concentrates on telling the horrific story and the central characters are "there" but are usually one dimensional. The characters in Misfits are definitely three dimensional and have depth. They are not perfect but are flawed human beings and it is the mix of good and bad traits that made me care about what happened to them. I was not keen on the ending but it made perfect sense and a different ending would not have fit so well. I did have to put the book down a couple of times because I did like the main characters, darn it, and life is not always full of roses. All in all, I found Misfits to be another outstanding novel which will go down as one of my top 5 favorites of Hunter Shea.