That is very much the vibe of Paul Tremblay’s Cabin at the End of the World, which mixes a violent home invasion with a looming apocalypse to chilling effect. What more could you want in a book, honestly? Instead, it feels like an important message wrapped inside entertaining, thought-provoking nightmare upon nightmare with a scarred-for-life-flavored cherry on top.

reason - into scenarios so terrifying that it doesn’t feel like a lesson being preached at you from a pulpit on high. His profoundly unsettling novel invites readers to ask themselves whether, when faced with the unbelievable, they would do the unthinkable to prevent it.One of my favorite things about the horror genre is how it’s able to distill core themes about our everyday lives – good vs. Tremblay (Disappearance at Devil's Rock) skillfully seeds his tale with uncertainties, including news reports of portentous world catastrophes, that suggest the invaders' vision is genuine, and he introduces enough doubt into the beliefs and behaviors of all the parties to keep them and the reader off-balance. That sets the stage for an excruciatingly tense standoff between them and their prisoners as they try to outmaneuver one other. Eric and Andrew are vacationing with their seven-year-old daughter, Wen, at remote Gaudet Lake in New Hampshire when their cabin is invaded by a quartet of weapons-wielding strangers, each of whom has been driven there by a shared vision: that the world will end unless one member of this family sacrifices another. The apocalypse begins with a home invasion in this tripwire-taut horror thriller. The Cabin at the End of the World is a masterpiece of terror and suspense from the fantastically fertile imagination of Paul Tremblay. Thus begins an unbearably tense, gripping tale of paranoia, sacrifice, apocalypse, and survival that escalates to a shattering conclusion, one in which the fate of a loving family and quite possibly all of humanity are entwined.

As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: “Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, “None of what’s going to happen is your fault.” Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen, but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway.

Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road. Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake.

Paul Tremblay’s terrifying twist to the home invasion novel-inspiration for the upcoming major motion picture from Universal Pictures

Cabin at the end of the world book