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2.69 AVERAGE
2.69 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is a very different type of story about "deading," which started out as a game by high schoolers playing at being dead for social media fodder. It jumps around between multiple characters in the California city of Baywood where deading is taking over. One character, Bernard, has an oyster farm in the bay that gets overrun with snails, he meets with an accident, and the snails take over his body and make him part of the "deading", now an entity. Other characters, Chango and Blas, are brothers who live with their mother. Chango works for Bernard at the oyster farm, and Blas is obsessed with bird watching and documenting his sightings. Blas is friends with Kumi Sato, an old widow in tune with nature and fellow bird watcher. Ingram and Victor are also two bird watching friends in the town. All the characters are affected negatively by the deading in one way or another, and it is causing extremely concerning behavior. "It wills her to slip into the dead stasis, to join the others, to be like the birds and the snails, to be the people giving in, giving up, slowly, collectively, dying."
This was a little difficult for me to get into at first. It seemed to be jumping around, and I wasn't sure who was speaking throughout some of the story. There is something wrong with everyone, but you just aren't sure what exactly is happening. The suspense and dread were felt in Mr. Belardes' writing. I thought the story was very uniquely written and was an interesting concept.
This was a little difficult for me to get into at first. It seemed to be jumping around, and I wasn't sure who was speaking throughout some of the story. There is something wrong with everyone, but you just aren't sure what exactly is happening. The suspense and dread were felt in Mr. Belardes' writing. I thought the story was very uniquely written and was an interesting concept.
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Made it 47% percent through and just couldn’t keep going. The premise is so good and the early chapters were so strong, but this has ground to an absolute halt. I love birds and even I have gotten sick of the lists upon lists of birds. I also think this book suffers from an audiobook format. The performances are fine, but hearing “dead” and “deading” used as verbs is so much more annoying when you have to actually hear it.
Every scene with a snail was transcendent and that bought a lot of goodwill in this book for me from the first few chapters. But I’m so disappointed with how the plot has essentially stopped and even in the midst of a reality-shifting, government quarantined, symbiotic death plague, I’m just so incredibly bored. Gotta get over the early promising bits and sunk coat fallacy and put this one down.
Every scene with a snail was transcendent and that bought a lot of goodwill in this book for me from the first few chapters. But I’m so disappointed with how the plot has essentially stopped and even in the midst of a reality-shifting, government quarantined, symbiotic death plague, I’m just so incredibly bored. Gotta get over the early promising bits and sunk coat fallacy and put this one down.
Thank you to Netgalley, Erewhon Books, and Nicholas Belardes for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I want to preface my review by acknowledging that I am one of those readers who frequently does not read the blurb or genre tags listed before picking up a new book. More often than not, I find that the blurb gives away too many spoilers for the plot, so I developed this habit to compensate. That being said, in the case of The Deading, this might be precisely why I was able to enjoy this book more than the majority who have reviewed it so far.
As an avid lover of Under the Dome and The Last of Us, I genuinely believe this book aligns with neither of these fandoms. To be perfectly clear - this does not mean I disliked the book. On the contrary, I found myself really enjoying it. However, if you're searching for a more accurate comparison, I'd say it's like if Chuck Palahniuk's younger sibling or nephew, after spending years studying Freud's unconscious mind theory, wrote an eco-horror extolling the virtues (or lack thereof) of the general population amidst an alien invasion.
The writing frequently shifted in point of view, but it was a deliberate narrative choice to indicate which of the (many) characters we were following in each chapter. It didn't alienate me, but I can see how it might be confusing or off-putting to others. I think, had it been used as a tool for shifting between the human and inhuman perspective, it might have made a little bit more sense to the majority of readers, but I can appreciate what Nicholas was doing.
The author had a lyrical writing style that was, in my opinion, unsettlingly beautiful. The birds played an important part in this, shifting from something beautiful into something uncanny-valley-esque (it's a word now, don't fight me) over time. This book made me feel hopeless. This book felt like a disturbingly accurate depiction of how people would react to an eco invasion.
I enjoyed it. I don't know if I'd read it again, but it deserves the four stars, because it's made me think a lot, and it's taken me three days to come up with the right words for this review.
I know it's not for everyone, but it was for me.
I want to preface my review by acknowledging that I am one of those readers who frequently does not read the blurb or genre tags listed before picking up a new book. More often than not, I find that the blurb gives away too many spoilers for the plot, so I developed this habit to compensate. That being said, in the case of The Deading, this might be precisely why I was able to enjoy this book more than the majority who have reviewed it so far.
As an avid lover of Under the Dome and The Last of Us, I genuinely believe this book aligns with neither of these fandoms. To be perfectly clear - this does not mean I disliked the book. On the contrary, I found myself really enjoying it. However, if you're searching for a more accurate comparison, I'd say it's like if Chuck Palahniuk's younger sibling or nephew, after spending years studying Freud's unconscious mind theory, wrote an eco-horror extolling the virtues (or lack thereof) of the general population amidst an alien invasion.
The writing frequently shifted in point of view, but it was a deliberate narrative choice to indicate which of the (many) characters we were following in each chapter. It didn't alienate me, but I can see how it might be confusing or off-putting to others. I think, had it been used as a tool for shifting between the human and inhuman perspective, it might have made a little bit more sense to the majority of readers, but I can appreciate what Nicholas was doing.
The author had a lyrical writing style that was, in my opinion, unsettlingly beautiful. The birds played an important part in this, shifting from something beautiful into something uncanny-valley-esque (it's a word now, don't fight me) over time. This book made me feel hopeless. This book felt like a disturbingly accurate depiction of how people would react to an eco invasion.
I enjoyed it. I don't know if I'd read it again, but it deserves the four stars, because it's made me think a lot, and it's taken me three days to come up with the right words for this review.
I know it's not for everyone, but it was for me.
The creepy parts were super creepy, but I just didn't care enough about the characters to continue.
dark
slow-paced
When this book reached its highs (beautiful prose, eerie setting, good horror) they were HIGH. When this book reached its lows (sluggish pacing, dull characters, overall feeling of general disconnect) they were LOW.
I can see why this book is decisive--you have to be a very specific kind of reader to enjoy this. And I did enjoy it at parts, skimmed it at others. Left a lot to be desired.
I can see why this book is decisive--you have to be a very specific kind of reader to enjoy this. And I did enjoy it at parts, skimmed it at others. Left a lot to be desired.
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No