Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed (review)

Written by Steve Duffy

(Review by Guadalupe Bustingorri)

Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed written by Steve Duffy is part of a book called Zombies – Encounters with the hungry dead created by John Skipp, an American author, who has collected different stories that reflect upon some of the teenagers’ interests when reading is the subject matter. It is worth mentioning at this point that this book can be matched with what is known as horror fiction, a genre of literature which is quite accepted by teen and young adult readers.

Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed counts with three male friends and a girl, who is dating with one of them, as main characters. This story takes place in a night trip. At first, everything was going easy and enjoyable for these friends, but this situation changes when a person known by them called Andy appears turned into a zombie. The story has an attractive and unexpected end that leaves the reader thinking about it for some minutes.

To some extent, the story is pretty much attention-grabbing since it deals with some issues related to teen people such as love insecurities when starting a new relationship, sexual feelings, courage and the stereotyped personalities among a group of friends who are, more or less, at the same average age. Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed also includes a great sense of adventure which is present at least in most of the teenagers´ lives around the world.

However, there is nothing said out of the ordinary about these affairs in this horror story. What I mean to say here is that, there is nothing new or undiscovered about them.

If it is only for entertainment or just because of the pleasure that reading might provoke, I would highly recommend this story. But if you are seeking for originality or the deeply treatment of certain issues as I have previously mentioned before, do not even dare to waste your time.