Reviews - Universal Harvester

1.8k reviews for:

Coming from Iowa, from around Ames, I really, really wanted to like this book. Hearing about Mary Greeley and Casey's and North Grand Mall was all very nostalgic. It was just hard get into the plot of the story. It just moved a little slow for my taste.

deliafrances's review against another edition

2.0

I thought this was going to be good but then it wasn’t. The beginning was promising but then it just never delivered. 2 stars because the I enjoyed some of the imagery but honestly this just was not it

rockhoppingpenguin's review

4.0

dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

zmull's review against another edition

2.0

The Good: The cover is beautiful.

The Bad: Universal Harvester sucks. What a shame because John Darnielle's first novel, Wolf in White Van was fantastic. This second novel is dreary and unfocused. There's a plot, but it goes nowhere slowly. The acknowledgements at the end describe the novel as "about mothers." If you say so. If you haven't read Wolf in White Van, drop this and go read it. If you have read his first book and are looking forward to this one... sorry, guys. Thumbs down.

karleighreads's review against another edition

2.0

The beginning of this book was so promising. Creepy and I was really invested but then it changed and jumped around and got really confusing. I don’t even know what happened I couldn’t keep the characters straight because of the time jumps. Disappointed.

kaycee27's review against another edition

3.0

Initially I thought this book was going in a different direction than it ended up. At times the jumping back & forth & addition of new characters took a minute to adapt to, but overall this was a good, quick read with a sad yet hopeful tone to finish.