3 STARS

"A woman's search for her missing daughter leads her into the twisted world of a madman's obsession." (From Amazon)

A good suspense thriller.

Actual rating is 3.5 stars.

This book is about a kidnapper that gains access to people's houses by the means of open houses as these people attempt to sell their home. One of the victims is a teenage girl Lindsay and her mother never gives up hope of finding her. This is a horror thriller genre novel.

Creepy. This is the word I would use to describe this book. The idea of letting strangers into your house to peruse through the whole building is unsettling in itself. Then you add in the idea of kidnapper using this as his way to commit these crimes is just plain creepy. The sense of foreboding is throughout this book and it had me on edge. There were a couple of scenes where I knew something major was going to happen but had no idea how and what direction it would come from. I think I had to remind myself to breathe while reading these scenes. This book is also a whodunit as the reader tries to figure out the culprit. I did think the ending was a little streamlined and that is why I lowered my rating the half star. If the reason behind the kidnapper and the finale was fleshed out a little more this would have been an easy four star rating.

I wasn't expecting a lot with this book as I have a love/hate relationship with this author's books. I enjoy his books but there is always one little piece that makes me not love them. This happened in this book but not to a degree that I was disappointed. This book gave me some serious creepy vibes and reading it with the lights off did affect me in the good way of scaring me.

Hmm. This was alright. Alright in the sense that I cared enough to have something to say about it.

I don’t think that the writing was great, or even good. But it was enough to not put me off completely. The concept of a killer that stalks his victims through the real estate ads was clever.

But the “chilling” parts were just stupid. That the subjects could smell their attacker. It was just over the top, didn’t cause goosebumps, just reminded me that it was a silly paperback.

Also, the reasoning for the way the “baddie” was acting that was kind of just thrown out there in the end… it was quite a good reason. But it wasn’t talked about enough for me to know whether I was meant to feel sorry for him, or if it was just supposed to be known.

It had the potential to be a lot better. The end was badly written, too rushed, and the descriptions were silly, and there was a lot of needless bullshit throughout.

Listened to this audio book on a long drive. Found the plot with the open houses clever. I wasn't convinced about the smells and hearing the voices in the night. I did think I had the right murderer early on, but I was wrong!

SPOILER ALERT

This is one of my favorite Saul books. He always has the creepy effect and does it so well he's almost as good as King. Even though I figured out who the "bad guy" was about halfway through the book it took a while for me to figure out it was him but just split personalities.
Who would suspect a nice rich man HELPING a mother look for her child? Spending money on the search for her?

Spoiler/Trigger Warning

Perfect Nightmare has a creepy start with its shadowy killer framing his murders as an accident. The killer has a journal where he records his killer thoughts- and having just read a book (Rose Madder) where I had to endure the antagonist's artless and gratuitiously-horrific thoughts I have to credit Perfect Nightmare in that these sections were breifer and less cringeworthy.

The characters are flat and their domestic life reads and feels like a basic family sitcom. The family is in the middle of moving and the teenager daughter is depressed because she wants to stay with her friends. What I like about John Saul is his blending of horror and luxury so there are plenty of grand houses to imagine and a cool hidden passage beneath the mansion library. I did think it was a disturbing and interesting angle to have the killer selecting open houses and hiding in them when the rest of the guests leave and waiting for his victims to be alone. The killer's lurking stealth was what I thought was most successful about the book.

Unfortunatley the twists were easy to predict (save for one which I'll get to shortly). The father dies in a poorly written drunk driving accident that is so telegraphed and overdone that it reads like a parody. The killer is capturing girls and keeping them in his dungeon (there is gross and gratuitous sexual objectification, and while it is never said that the girls are raped the fact that it is a sex dungeon is implied.). The book careens at the end when it's revealed that the killer has a split personality resulting from being repeatedly raped by his sister and her friend as a child in their playhouse... the killer ends up being the rich philanthropist who at the start of the book woke up in his estate's mausoleum next to his family's remains who mysteriously died in a fire- who would have guessed? While the whole time it was obvious who the killer was, the child rape aspect is presented in a way so that the reader sympathizes (?) with the killer or explains his insane motivations. When the killer is discovered and seems to realize how crazy he is and remembers his past trauma, he flees to his sisters house and kills her and then himself. The book has a rushed and unsatisfying end, where instead of providing resolution for the distraught mom in defeating her daughter's captor, the captor/gross villain gets to get his revenge on a minor character. The characters are paper thin. Some parts read so thinly its like you can follow along the flight of ideas where the desperation to fill the page and keep the paragraphs growing feels apparent.

Not what I'm used to from Saul...nothing supernatural to this one. Just a disturbing thriller. Pretty good, with a sick twist that wasn't totally predictable. Worth the read.

A strong 3.5 suspense thriller….well well another adult read LOL I am trying it this year and reading them fast to get back to YA LOL…Trying to clean up my “recommended bookshelf” by reading and finally getting to every book that was given to me to read that I put away and got distracted by other books LOL…so this one was from an adult reading friend I work with that said this was her favorite author and I had to try one of his, turns out I have two others from somewhere also on my shelves---seemed like a sign to try and see how I like his style and have something to really go back to intelligently say to this reader who loves this author and genre..A thriller..
So this story starts with a husband and wife Kara and Steve contemplating moving away from her picturesque town in Long Island New York with her daughter Lindsay for life in the city—and she hates it..Moving her teenage daughter away from her school during her senior year is upsetting enough but its what must be done to keep their family together—as they start the process to sell their house and enter it online with an agent the narrative shifts to our villain and resident creep who is starting to stalk the young beautiful blond Lindsay and begin the perfect nightmare for anyone..…What if someone was in your house watching you, waiting for you?

“I am almost sure it is the house. A teenage girl lives there, and something inside me tells me she is perfect for me.” (Pg. 26)
“I hate being patient. But soon…soon, I shall see her, and touch her, and smell her. And she will know all the feelings I knew so long ago. But this time will be different. This time the feelings will go on forever. (Pg. 28)

After watching both seasons of You on Netflix about a seriously sick and unstable psycho stalker this book seems to be just along that vein of extreme obsession and I am here for it.. This book was rich in character development and there are several creepy scary guys in this town—however the reveal to me did not utilize all the detailed creepiness this story is full of-the real estate guys, and the butler, man almost every guy in this book were candidates so the one chosen and his backstory felt lackluster to me..I did enjoy the pacing, the terror and the overall writing but I feel it could have been tighter in closing loose ends, fleshing out the mind of this deranged man and upping the suspense of it all..I liked this author though, think the premise was engaging enough and will definitely read more but this one was not all I wanted it to be and all it could have been a higher rating….

I must say that a Perfect Nightmare is really the perfect one.

Hell breaks loose when Lindsay Marshall disappears, and what follows is a downward spiral of tragic incidents.

If I say anything more, the book would be spoilt, hence allow me to stop here.

This was going to be two-three stars but the ending is so lit that the highlighting point of the book is the great twist in itself.

Highly recommend as a light read.

Coșmarul" de John Saul este o carte captivantă și tulburătoare, care explorează teroarea și misterul din adâncurile psihologiei umane.
"Coșmarul" rămâne cu cititorul, provocându-l să reflecteze asupra unor aspecte întunecate ale existenței umane.

Pentru cei care caută o lectură intensă și plină de suspans, romanul oferă o călătorie captivantă în lumea ficțiunii horror.

Wow. It took me three days to tear through this book, and I loved every second of it. This book was twisted, made me uncomfortable, but kept me hooked until the very last word. This is one of those books you'd read once and never have to read again. It's horribly twisted but deliciously written.

AMAZING BOOK! if you love psychological thrillers and different POVs constantly.. you will love this book! I could NOT put down this book! the ending is THE BEST PART and no one saw it coming! 10/10 recommend and i look forward to reading notebooks by Mr.Saul.