Book Review: The Color of Evil by Connie Corcoran Wilson

The Color of Evil begins with a boy named Tad, who is able to see people’s auras. At a young age, he is terrified by a birthday party clown. Following the party, he has terrible nightmares that turn out to be true—they are all the murders the clown has committed. Tad’s parents institutionalize him briefly, and then they all decide not to talk about his ability to see auras, even though it continues. When Tad becomes a teenager, he falls in love with a girl who is dating the wrong guy, and things turn ugly.

This book is really only for fans of horror. Not only was there some gore in the book, but few people in the book seem to have any redeeming qualities. It seems everyone is either perverted, violent, unfaithful, or dishonest. While I’m plenty cynical about the worthiness of humanity, it was a pessimistic outlook even for me. I found a few places where dates didn’t seem to line up, and there were more than a few passages that seemed to repeat the same information—much “telling” rather than “showing.” While I appreciated the premise, the pace of the book was a bit slow for my liking, with the author stopping to dwell on certain facts or repeat others. There also seemed to be too many points of view that switched too often. I much rather would have stayed in one primary point of view with a few others to show the necessary information. Though the book seems sometimes geared toward a young adult audience, I didn’t feel it was appropriate for the under-17 crowd.

This is the first in a trilogy, and while the style sometimes dragged, I did appreciate the plot, so I’ll give book two a try since I received a free review copy. Book three is scheduled to be released soon.