This may be my 2nd favorite Adam Nevill book. Your pulled in from the start with Tom and Dante, along for the ride to St.Andrews. The scary, creepy bits are there from the start and it just gets darker and darker. I did not expect this book to be about what it turned out to be about. It was a very good suprise. If you like other books by this author, you'll love this one.

This isn't my favorite Adam Nevill by far.I found Last Days to be far creepier than this book but it had its moments. I was just hoping for I think MORE. The kind of must-read-only-in-the-light creepiness that came from Last Days. The creepy moments in this were so far between that it just didn't have the same impact.I feel like his protagonist is one that I've met before and is so overdone in horror novels. So I'll stick to my Goodreads ratings of 2. I liked it. But I didn't love it.

A very strong 4. Once this got going, it became one of the most visually intense novels I've read. I simply could not put down the last 100 or so pages. If you liked the film, Hereditary, I believe you will like this.

”But just as suddenly as it began, the kiss ends. Beth releases Dante’s face and sits back to pant in the dark beside him, her lips smeared with blood or lipstick. He does not care. The smudge image of her face watches him, eagerly. It is as if she is now using extraordinary powers of will to restrain herself. A little whimper for more mewls from his throat and dies on his tongue. She looks insane, slovenly, a hysteric; the mouth gaping, the stare crude, the body slumped, thighs open. Torture po...

Ack. I can't do it. I can't finish the thing. Picking it up for another chapter felt like a punishment. I've had so many people recommend this book that I feel almost guilty for having so many problems with it, but I do. Characters spend brief sojourns speaking like actual people do before collapsing into the narrative voice. They introspect tirelessly, and tiresomely, sucking life out of the plot (which I kept zoning out of). The prose is a bloated, turgid mess, working too hard to impress and

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the hazards of writing supernatural horror fiction at novel-length are many and legendary. The received wisdom is that it cannot be done with any real success. But the received wisdom is that there are also a few honourable exceptions. So whilst good novel-length supernatural horror fiction (meaning here what can be conveniently be called “Jamesian” or “dark fantasy”, and thus not simply horror fiction) is as rare as Weird Tales keeping to its adverti...

This is the second book that I've read of Adam Nevill and there's a few things that I've noticed from both books. This guy is super detailed in his writing and he puts in a ton of time in research!So if those two things don't work for you in books, you might want to skip Nevill.I seem to not have a problem with both and I really liked Banquet for the Damned!The book starts off with Dante and Tom traveling from Birmingham to St. Andrews for a new start. Dante has been in contact with Professor El...

I liked it...While I happen to sit on the side of the fence of readers who claim that horror is much more potent in short-story format, once in a while I run into a full-length novel that can throw a continually sustained chill down my spine. Banquet for the Damned did just that. Although it didn't give me nightmares or produce the sort of night terrors that some of the characters suffered in this book, the creep factor was intense enough to where I read it in one sitting -- alone, at night,wind...

Probably the worst book I had the pleasure of giving up on. after well over 250 page my reading buddy and I decided it was not worthy. Believe me you do not want to read this. It's badly written, it has no plot direction, the characters are awful. most of the book appears like a scene-descritpion in a movie script - short, and exhaustive. just don't. this book is NOT about a scholar investigating mysterious deaths. this book is about killing your will to read and live. be smart, walk away.

This is so recommended to anyone who has ever been a Student or Staff member in The University of St Andrews but those of a nervous disposition who are living there at the moment maybe should give it a miss :)

This is the fourth book of Nevill's I've read. I love his writing, his characterization and his slow-burn style. Banquet was his first published book and his style has changed quite a bit since then. The only problems I have with Mr Nevill is his main characters often make really fucking dumb decisions . There was more than one time in this as well as other books of his, that I desperately wanted to slap the protagonist in the face with a wet fish. Hard. And with vigour. More than once. The oth...

I did like this book much better than Apartment 16; however, I didn't really love it. My biggest complaint is that the book is incredibly repetitive. Since I'm not a big fan of this genre and don't read a lot of it or watch a lot of these movies, the only things I have to really compare this book to are video games. So, here's a gamer's perspective on this book:Adam Nevill would have gotten five stars from me if he would have heeded the following:1.) Cut the book in half. The whole thing dragged...

**actual rating 3.5**This was a tough book to rate. On the one hand, I thought some of the writing was truly exceptional and even more so because this is the authors first book. Haunting, horrifying, heartbreaking....there was a lot of ground covered and some of the descriptions in the book were just awesome.That said.....I think it was a tad too long and seemed to move a little slowly at times (544 total pages). This was the reason for my 3.5 rating instead of a 4.The setting of the book is a u...

This is my first Adam Nevill novel and I loved it. Loved simply because I respect authors who invest a lot of time in research. Just the amount of books he read in order to make this peace of work is astonishing. The pace was constant though it could have had a bit more action, but I'm not complaining as the story flowed nicely.I'm really surprised to see a lot of bad reviews. I think this book deserves a bigger rating than 3,38.But I guess everyone has a right to his own opinion.This is a new g...

This book could've been at least half shorter and still deliver the same punch. I liked the plot overall except for one aspect. But most chapters were difficult to get through because they were filled with unnecessary details and descriptions. Author does all the thinking for you through his characters and that robbed me from a lot of pleasure when I had to read pages upon pages of characters wondering same things I have, which didn't exactly move the plot forward just added to the word count. G...

Banquet For The Damned was, for me, on a level with Peter Straub’s Ghost Story, which is one of my all time favourites. I found it chilling and authentic but what really elevated it was the depth of the subject matter and the level of writing. The horror elements were unrelenting but the story unfolded at it’s own pace. When I thought it had peaked, it would peak again. For the last part I was genuinely filled with dread. This is a true horror.“Just before everything goes to black, something sli...

2.5 stars.This was the first novel that I read from Adam Nevill (forgot to post a review), and I wasn't overly impressed. While the idea was okay, I--personally--found it a bit too unnecessarily wordy.I would recommend, instead, starting with his novel, HOUSE OF SMALL SHADOWS. I found this one much more "creepy", myself.

Feb Review 1: Banquet for the Damned by Adam Nevill "Over there, Dante, are three clever debunkers. You know what a debunker is? A person who lacks imagination, Dante. Who can only thrive in the world. Their dull creed replaced spirituality with a new god of economics. But what has that achieved? People are dissatisfied, bored, unfulfilled. Those three can do nothing but mock the intuitive and the creative. Like us, Dante, who flee the everyday world and seek a meaning through our endeavours.

Dante had been writing Eliot Coldwell, the author of Banquet for the Damned for a couple of years. Banquet had a big influence on their band and their hit album. Eliot invites Dante to come to Scotland to help him do some research for his new book. Dante jumps at the chance to work with Coldwell. Dante bring along another band member and his best friend Tom. Dante believes that the research that he is doing for Eliot, will help the band produce another classic rock album. Dante meets Coldwell in...

This was one of those books you're just not quite sure what to make of. I was really into it at the beginning, and couldn't put it down for about a third of the story, but little by little I began to lose interest and by the last few chapters I didn't really care what happened. The supernatural/occult element was really interesting at first, but some of what happened was just overkill and it all became a bit silly. While the narrative painted a really vivid picture of the setting, and some of th...