Bakers Dozen 7

The Funhouse by Dean Koontz

So this was probably one of the first books in the Horror genre that I have ever read, and it's stuck with me 10 years after I have read it.  I remember going through my mom's book collection because I was sick of reading nothing by V.C. Andrews and the title intrigued me.  So I grabbed the book from the bookshelf and started to read.

The book is based around Amy Harper's life and how she is trying to cope with an overly zealous Catholic mother who is fighting demons from her past and taking it out on her children and turning to vodka to drive away her misery.  Their are many key plot changers in this story that keeps you interested but ultimately you know what the final conflict will be.  The story starts with a young Ellen (Amy's mother) married to an abusive carny, Conrad Straker, and she has given birth to a deformed, demonic child.  Terrified and disgusted by the disfigurement of her first born son, Ellen kills the child and flees from the carnival.  She then turns to religion and eventually remarries and gives birth to two normal children, Amy and Joey.  After the prologue the story is mainly based on Amy with cutouts of Conrad looking for revenge.  Amy finds out she's pregnant in prom night and tells her mother, who is terrified of what the child might look like because he was conceived in sin allows Amy to get and abortion and tells Amy that she is done protecting her soul and that she is basically emotionally alone.  Amy turns to her best friend Liz, who is one of loose morals, and soon finds herself slipping into a darkness that she doesn't want to be a part of.  When the carnival comes to town, Amy's little brother Joey decided he's going to become a carny because of his mom's abuse and runs into Conrad.  Joey doesn't know that Conrad, has a second son who has grown to be what the first born was and he is seeking revenge for his son's murder by killing Ellen's two children.  The final showdown is a fight between Gunther (Conrad's second son) and Amy, and these where Amy realized her positive view on religion.

Again, this story is a major first for me because it was a different genre that what I usually read.  Now I still don't read a lot of horror book but this was a nice breath of fresh air and it's a good book to pick up from time to time to re-read.