No tears, please. It’s a waste of good suffering

    

        The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker is a masterpiece. This is one of the greatest pieces of literature that I have read. The book focuses on 2 main characters Frank and Julia. Frank is a greedy man who will do anything for pleasure. One night he goes to a street vendor in Morocco. The vendor tells Frank this box will bring immeasurable pleasures for whoever can solve it. Frank buys the box and brings it home. It takes him hours to open the box but finally, it clicks and he has finished. From the wall emerge four creatures known as cenobites. These hellish creatures were once human but their flesh has been scared and manipulated in an almost artistic way. They show Frank the pleasures he is looking for, but Frank was wildly misled this pleasure was pure pain hooks and chains bring Frank into the cenobite's labyrinth. 

Julia was married to Franks's brother Rory. Rory had a kid from a previous relationship called Kirsty. Julia and Frank were having an affair. Julia heartbroken by Frank’s disappearance moved into the house where he used to live. After some blood is accidentally spilled through the carpet Julia begins to hear something. When she goes to investigate she sees Frank in a horrible state. He is only a skeleton with a little muscle on his body. He needs more blood to become whole again. Julia who is to madly in love with Frank voes to do so. 

This book shows a message about greed and love. Julia was in love with Frank to the point where she would do anything he said. Frank was to greedy, his whole life was him traveling the world for whatever sick pleasures he wanted. He would do anything to get what he wants. Both would do whatever was necessary for what they wanted. When they eventually took it to far they got what was coming for them. 

I really like how Clive Barker gives a detailed backstory for Julia and Frank. They were so jam-packed with backstory extremely early in the book. He used 166 pages for this book and got so much through. When he describes the Cenobites and Frank he leaves much to the imagination. He describes a little but hides the rest of the details away. I really like how he does that because the way I pictured the Cenobites was a little different than how Clive Barker pictured them. This book is very good at making me read a lot of it at once. I read almost the whole book in one sitting. It was that interesting. He really put a lot of work into Frank, Julia, and the Cenobites.

Now There were somethings that I did not like about this book. While Clive Barker Does a great job at giving Julia and Frank good character development he kinda skimps out with Rory and Kirsty. These two characters have quite a bit of time in the book yet we don’t get to much development from them. It feels like they are just side characters and thats all they were meant to be. I think that if they had some more development then this reading would be a lot more interesting. The final thing I don’t like about this book is that it’s to short. After I read this I was hungry for more. It was not satisfying for the book to be so short. He does a great job at packing the information into this small book but I would have just liked it to be a little longer.

                                                                                                                       Johnathon Spencer