"Scanlines" by Todd Keisling - Book Review

 

    Going into this book, I had pretty high hopes because it reminded me so much of the Ring series. I love horror surrounding found tapes or tapes that are supposedly cursed or haunted, and I picked it up, knowing that I'd probably enjoy reading it. Knowing that, here's a quick synopsis of Scanlines by Todd Keisling: 

In 1987, Congressman Benjamin Hardy III died by suicide on live television amidst accusations of political corruption. Years later, rumors of a recording surfaced among VHS trading groups and urban legend chat rooms. Dubbed the "Duncan Tape," after the deceased cameraman who attempted to sell the video, the rumors allege that anyone who watches the tape is driven to suicide.

Or so the story goes. In truth, no one has ever seen the supposed Duncan Tape, presumably because it doesn't exist. It's a ghost story perpetuated on the forums and chat rooms of the internet, another handful of bytes scattered across the Information Superhighway at blistering 56K modem speeds.

For Robby and his friends, an urban legend is the last thing on their minds when a boring Friday night presents a chance to download porn. But the short clip they watch turns out to be something far more graphic and disturbing, and in the coming days, they'll learn even the most outlandish urban legends possess a shred of truth...

    Reading that for the first time had me completely hooked and ready to tackle whatever Keisling planned on throwing at me. I HIGHLY recommend that you check this book out before reading the rest of this post because I had a decent time reading it. I won't lie to you; it does drag a little bit and becomes slightly repetitive, but once you get over that small bit, you'll enjoy the rest of the book. 

    If you do decide to continue reading, I have to warn you that there are going to be spoilers ahead. I plan on getting to the nitty-gritty with this review because I have a decent amount to talk about regarding the story.  

Warning: There will be spoilers ahead, so proceed with caution!

    Scanlines is a perfect example of a coming-of-age story that has a dark twist. You have a group of teens doing the stereotypically teenage-boy thing: trying to access a porn tape to see a woman's bare chest for the first time. However, everything nose-dives as soon as they open the video and watch a "lost tape" of a politician's suicide. Obviously, the boys are taken aback and go to bed in silence, terrified of what they just witnessed. 

    Over the next few days, we watch the group fall into mental distress because the video is quite literally haunting them and showing up in both their dreams and everyday lives. The book continues with the boys trying to figure out what exactly is behind the "lost tape" that they watched and end up dragging more people into the chaos in hopes that if they understand the story behind the tape, they would stop being haunted by the deceased politician. 

    I won't lie to you; this book was full of cliches, which kind of took me out of the experience. I would've loved to see the author fully put his own twist on this subgenre of cursed videotapes/media. Think about it, we could have gone into the politician's backstory and added more depth into how they could possibly break the curse. You wouldn't  even have to change the ending, but added some more substance could've made the group's death more tragic. It just all seemed quite rushed as a story while also being painstakingly slow all at the same time. 

    The one thing that I loved the most about this story was the fact that the group takes out a Ouija board and tries to communicate with the dead politician. That little tangent is such a small aspect of the plot and felt like a ploy that the author used to make up for the fact that he didn't know how to end the story. We get introduced to the fact that the politician wants more victims and then the story pretty much ends. 
    I hate dragging on authors in reviews, but it's so hard not to when this story could've been so much more! I wanted to like this book, I really did! Unfortunately, it just didn't live up to the hype that I felt going into it. 
    Regardless, that's pretty much all that I wanted to say about Scanlines. If you have any thoughts about this book, don't hesitate to leave a comment!