A Thousand Natural Shocks is psychological suspense at its finest, tingling with unsettling paranoia and fear of both the ailments affecting the protagonist, and the protagonist himself.
Omar Hussain weaves a complex and layered story about a news reporter, Dash, who is desperate to forget his past. He finds himself in a cult that promises to help him be reborn without the burdens of his past. As Dash begins to lose parts of his memory, he also starts to lose his grasp on reality, unsure if he’s chased by a serial killer or a face from his past. At the same time, he finds that the cult has its own selfish and immoral reasons for wanting to give people a fresh slate. With time running out, can Dash make sense of all that’s happening to him or will his intense desire to forget his past overpower him into oblivion?
The narrative is chock full of surprises and misdirects that grow so authentically that you’re caught completely off-guard by the gut-punches that make their way off the pages. This thriller is best described as a poignant exploration of trauma and grief in the guise of a character-focused thriller where you are following a very flawed, human, and compelling character on a very personal journey into the depths of hell unlike what you’d expect. There’s subtle social commentary about the world we live in, particularly about the extent we’d go to to not feel pain and hurt and sadness, all wrapped neatly underneath the simmering suspenseful atmosphere of trying to make sense of what’s the real deal with the protagonist. Omar Hussain times his reveals superbly for the maximum payoff and even if you somehow saw them coming, the resonating nature of the twists will still hook you in after the fact.
A Thousand Natural Shocks is a brilliant debut that slowly builds a momentum capitalizing on the emotional pain, paranoia, and unpredictability of the protagonist to engage all your senses as you dive into a dark and disturbing world of darkness where we run away from our emotions instead of facing them. It’ll leave you doing some soul searching.
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