Book Review: Doors

By Bameskaur Pabla @bameslive

Doors by Daniel Brako
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Doors is a book where the story is very much non-linear. The author does a good job with telling it. The story is about a psychologist named Dr. David Druas. He was having a session with a patient when one of his other patients, Hans Werner, barges into his office clearly very disturbed. Dr. Druas decides to attend to his very disturbed patient and tries his best to calm Hans down.

Hans Werner tells Dr. Druas that he sees doors where there shouldn't be any. He even points out a door that apparently is on one of Dr. Druas' office wall. But David does not see anything and tries to explain to Hans that he is probably confused. Hans insists he isn't crazy, David reassures him that he does not think Hans is crazy either. Hans is insisting that he has found a piece of paper inside a toy which contained some instructions written on it. Finally, after exhausting all avenues, David decides to show Hans that it is all a prank and that there is nothing in it by following the instructions on the paper.

After completing the ritual as per the instructions on the piece of paper, David assures Hans that he does not see any special doors. Hans then decides to leave. After Hans leaves, Dr. Druas suddenly gets to notice a door on his office wall that was not there before. It appears Hans was right. After the doctor decides to meet Hans to tell him he was right about the doors, things start to happen. 

Dr. Druas is concerned that he may be going down the deep end himself and decides to ask the help of a mentor and friend, Olive who is also a psychologist. Olive tries to film David going through one of the doors. However, as he entered the door, Olive's memory of the event just got erased. The door that David has gone through is very different. He gets trapped in that world for several days. 

When David manages to come back from the world he was trapped in, things are not the sameFor one thing, Hans dies and the police think the doctor did it. But David insists he is innocent and decides to run. Now a fugitive with the police looking for him, Dr. Druas uses the doors to help him evade arrest. But then he comes across a Doorkeeper and things just got a lot worse.

Daniel Brako's book is interesting. The concept of the doors reminds me of Stephen King's book The Drawing of the Three which is part of The Dark Tower series. The doors open to reveal different worlds and only those who have invoked the doors can see them. I liked reading the book although I did feel that the story seems somewhat clipped -- that it may have been cut short in places, though I do not know if that is truly the case.

I would have loved the story to have gone on much longer with much more detail. That is why I only rated it three stars. Do not get me wrong, the story is good. I just feel it could have been much better if the story was more developed and there were more explanations about the doors, the worlds they reveal and how they came to be. I would like to know more about the Doorkeepers... I just want to know more :)


View all my reviews