Catch Hold Of Friend Fashioned By Diana Henstell Distributed As Print

kid would be a MRA today Wonderful darkly romantic retelling of Frankenstein, I will always feel some disgruntlement with Wes Craven for turning the story into the awful film Deadly Friend, Preferring the original title over it being packaged as 'Deadly Friend' after the Wes Craven directed, studio butchered movie 'inspired by' the novel, I wonder if I can talk about the book without talking about the unintentionally hilarious movie that it inspired that featured Kristie Swanson as a robot zombie.
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Friend is a hard book to read, It's an attempt on a modern retelling of Frankenstein incorporating youth aspects of infatuation, love, domestic abuse, technology, divorce, loneliness, and myriad other themes that weave in and out.
Sometimes it's so creepy as to make the reader question the tonality of the rest of the novel, Sometimes it's obvious that the author would rather be writing the book from a more familiar perspective the mother of the main protagonist, The author's love of Mary Shelley's finest work is very clear at the end, The author's sincerity in wanting to tell the story about a touching friendship is very clear, The author's inexperience in putting a whole book together is also very clear but every author has a first novel,

It's impressive that anyone chose to make a screenplay out of this book, It's unfortunately that 'A Nightmare of Elm Street' caused the studio's to 'tweak' the resulting film into the hilarious mess it became, . . but honestly a film capturing the true spirit of 'Friend' would not be some campy movie for teenagers, It would be sad, tragic, uncomfortable, and hard to watch in places, Wow, Friend became an instant favorite,

Friend is a tragic story about a genius boy who brings his friend back to life after their tragic murder, Its essentially a modern day Frankenstein, and its horrifying,

Author Diana Henstell created a haunting tale of loneliness, friendship, and love, The story is drenched with dread and atmosphere, and Henstells ability to create such vivid imagery made many scenes terrifying to read,

The story is a slow burn that

allows you to really connect with the characters and empathize with them when things go wrong, The build up has an incredibly shocking payoff,

I highly recommend this one, especially for fans of old schools horror, Paul Conway nicknamed Piggy is an genius adolescent who has moved with his mother away from Boston in part because of problems with Piggy's behavior, Piggy is troubled by that and by his parents' divorce, and he finds it difficult to fit into small town life, He makes two friends and he has a friend he created a small robot, One human friend is his neighbor Samantha whom he can't bear to lose, He uses all his skills to keep her with him, which is what the horror aspect of the novel revolves around,

It's a little difficult for me to rate this book because I didn't realize from the back cover description that I'd be reading about an adolescent.
I thought the book was a horror/suspense story about a young man who'd had a troubled childhood and then fell in love as an adult, So I wasn't quite ready to read about someone struggling not only with first love and loss, but also with fitting in to a new school and making the transition toward adulthood.
There's nothing wrong with a book like that, I just wasn't in the frame of mind to read one when I started reading Friend, As it turns out, though, I liked that part of the book better than the horror aspects of it, Once it turned more toward horror, I found the plot a bit too hard to believe, which took me out of the story,

As to characterization, I sympathized with Paul/Piggy early on, but he pushes his best friend so far that I had trouble continuing to cheer for him.
At the same time, I did feel bad for Piggy, and that almost became too painful,

I liked the writing itself and I kept reading to find out what happened, but I don't think I will read anything else by this author.
That being said, someone with slightly different tastes, and who knew the book was about an adolescent protagonist from the outset, might like it very much, It starts out like a Judy Blume book but descends into a warped riff on Frankenstein, The throughline of not being able to overcome grief feels like a better version of the Atype emotional horror, more fully realized and depressing, Its more dread than anything, You know the kid cant get out scotfree, but you dont want any other alternative to happen, so youre stuck seeing things get progressively worse and worse.
I can see why Wes Craven was so interested in this, its genuinely disturbing stuff! I saw the movie "Deadly Friend" and had to read the book it was based off of.
I liked it! I should not have finished this book, I resolved to myself not to read bad books, so what do I do Keep plodding through this doorstop to the end,

I rented "Deadly Friend" on Netflix and was surprised to find that it was based on a novel, I thought "a story about a robot AND a Frankenstein girl Yes, please, " But no, I should have stopped there, It's an idea that better rests in the mind than in tangible form, It is so overwritten it's obviously trying to stand on the same pedestal as the Stephen King mass market paperback thrillers ofit's even got alcoholism and a small New England town.
And it's just as overwritten, SO overwritten. Every thought a character has, every nuance of movement, every past detail is rehashed, sometimes six or seven times, As if the reader is too stupid and needs a review every POV switch,

In the book, the robot is a lot less "Johnny Five" and more "'s robot" from the Muppets, It doesn't even talk. And its creator is a twelveyearold kid who brings it everywhere he goes to school, the grocery store like it's his security blanket, It's no retelling of Frankenstein and it's no thriller, It's slow, it's stupid, and it ain't got no style, Not a single character is likable, least of all the main one, His mother should be taking him to therapy, not to a genius academy, His mother calls him "Piggy" for chrissakes, The science is appalling, the dialogue is cheesy, It makes one wonder how this idea passed muster in the agent's room, The writing is excellent but this story took forever to go anywhere I wanted to read this because I had seen the film version, "Deadly Friend, " Well, now my curiosity is satisfied, and I only finished the book to see how closely it followed the movie, I couldn't have tolerated much more of the author's purple prose and totally predictable plot,,estrellas. I didnt love it. Ending sucks. So this is what love comes to Where has this book been all my life OMG I loved it, Great story, characters, and you WILL care about them, Has suspense, some gore, humor, and tragedy, Highly recommended! No empieza mal, bien escrito y con una premisa que puede ser interesante, pero relativamente pronto comienza a hacerse algo pesado de leer,
Demasiado detallado, sobran diálogos y situaciones insustanciales que no hacen sino machacar una y otra vez una idea que se pilla rápidamente: que al niño protagonista, por muy genio que sea, le habrían hecho falta, como se decía antes de que fuera políticamente incorrecto insinuarlo, un par de "galletas" bien dadas a manos llenas.
Es el personaje culmen entre un elenco en lo que tampoco sobran aquellos con los que se podría simpatizar, pues parece que todos los habitantes del pueblo están de permanente mal humor.

Apunta Goodreads que el libro tienepáginas, pero se me ha hecho con si tuvieraomás al menos, the only character in the book you don't hate with whitehot fiery rage is a little girl who gets killed,

reading this, one can see the skeletal elements of wes craven's 'film, but it's only the very most basic elements that were taken: kid and his mom move to a new town, kid's a genius with a robot, girl next door is cute, she dies, robot's brain gets put in girl, murder ensues.


in henstell's novel, paul is a horrible little boy who's terribly smart, but also terribly irritating and selfimportant, he's generally putupon by most who meet him, and you can kind of understand why, the fact that he ends up with two friends in the course of the novel is rather baffling, his mother's ridiculously in her own head, and essentially, nobody in friend is willing to actively do anything, it'sreactive to things, and it makes the plot plod and drag,

maybe only for the very curious fan of the film, definitely not for the casual scifi horror fan, as it's nasty and mean, and not in the titillatingly fun way, just got watch the movie, Excellent book that I read when I was young, Made into a nice movie but it never worked as well as the book or recreated that magic, Still one of my alltime favorite stories, I remember this awful movie from the mids, Poor Wes Craven was forced to make ridiculous changes to please the producers, but I found one of those lists online: Terrible Movies Made From Good Books.
This was on it so I thought I'd give it a go,

I was bored by chapterand gave up, Though I'm sure to upset some authors and publishers who, understandably, want fivestar reviews, I've my own definition of the fivestar system,

One Star: A crime against God and man,
Two Stars: Poor, or otherwise not ready for publication,
Three Stars: A solid work worth the money/read,
Four Stars: A superior, awardworthy achievement,
Five Stars: A standard setter, a work to stand the test of time, a work to be studied and read again and again,

"Friend," or "Deadly Friend," by Diana Henstell,

Sound familiar Probaly, It is the underrated film by Wes Craven, a movie that's not nearly as appreciated as it should be, But first it was a book, a wonderful modernday Frankenstein story that's a suspenseful, sensitive, and ultimately, tragic tale, I remember it reading many years ago, and loving it,

Today it's available on Amazon, and available for the Kindle for just under a dollar, which is all but a steal, and more than reason enough to get.


Remember: New titles are so writers can make a living yeah, I know, . . don't laugh at me, used books are so they can be immortal,

All my best,

Rob M, Miller

P. S. I know the above review is kind of anemic, Earlier today I watched the film "Deadly Friend" with a family member who'd never seen it and got reminded of the book, As a writer, I'm always a reader first, and with the constant flood of new titles coming out, it's easy to exclusively give attention to the alwaysenormous slush and tobereadpile.
Then again, there's these gems, titles released many years ago, In this case, "Friend" came out in, the year before I enlisted in the U, S. Army. Why's that relevant Because as I write this, on the Day of our Lord, Octoberth,, someyears later, I still have vivid memories from this simple, wellwritten page turner.
To have that kind of staying power with a story, for it to mark itself in a person's mind for the better part of three decades, is an accomplishment that every author of fiction hopes for, and which, often, does not happen.


To the author, Ms, Diana Henstell, I salute you, With "Friend," you hit one outta the park, How far To date, aboutyears!,