Reviews with content warning for Child death - Disappearance at Devil's Rock

Disappearance at Devil's Rock is a sometimes hard to read look at a family in mourning and the things they do to keep hope in dark times. What is does with atmosphere makes up for the lack of momentum in the proceedings; despite the mystery aspect, many of the clues are 'given'.

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jess2obsess's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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phou's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

It starts out great, drags more than a bit halfway, and has a GREAT climax and ending!!!!
Many people thought the ending didn't pay off, but I think the opposite... I have this tendency of loving Paul Tremblay's endings regardless of how controversial they are, they are just perfect for me.

TCATEOTW is still my personal favorite Tremblay book, but I'm sure whether I enjoyed AHFOG or this book more, i definitely disliked somethings (mostly the blog entries) about AHFOG but it was SO GOOD overall while I didn't dislike anything about this book, just that it dragged (you have to power through it for a bit) and in fact like I've mentioned several times now the last third was perfect, couldn't put it down from then on.

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matt4hire's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Not a bad Tremblay book, but definitely not my favorite. The potentially supernatural angle feels a little sparser than in others of his I’ve read, and there are a few too many open doors to rationalize. Still, the characters were well-written and the plot moved nicely.

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killmoore_'s review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

My goodness. This was painfully boring.. then it wasn't! Then it ended.

I struggled through the first 2/3 of this, and almost put it down a handful of times. It's repetitive, the characters are shallow, and the dialog feels forced. The 70 or so pages of escalation are well done, and I loved the weaved interrogation format, but it fell so flat at the end that I shut the book -angry-, repeating the last line out loud, to myself.

This is the first Tremblay novel I've read, and while I still plan on reading Head Full of Ghosts, I'm nowhere near as excited as I was before reading this. A previous review hit the nail on the head - R.L. Stein trying way too hard to be Dickens.

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