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

Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay

12 reviews

duke_elligos's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Content Warnings

hauntedantiqueshop's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

2.75

Paul Tremblay……….… my forever frenemy. I like the concept but there are aspects I could have done without.

I read Survivor Song last year and was happily surprised to see it connected to this book! I didn’t realize it until the boys said some of their catch phrases (side note: I hate them. I don’t know that Mr. Tremblay has ever heard teenagers speak to one another). I was already familiar with the boys and liked them, just didn’t know their full backstory. Characters are fine besides the continuous fake teenage boy lingo, the little sister’s weird justification for her actions (especially for an 11 year old), the entire lack of police investigation and procedures is shocking and utterly inconceivable.

I don’t like that Arnold is just… some guy. ~~And the type of guy he is just makes me want to beat him to death like a territorial gorilla.~~ A weird mid 20s man that likes to hang out with and manipulate 13 year old boys? Groundbreaking. I was really hoping he’d actually be the devil (or at least he believed he was) since he had the whole story about Devil’s Rock. That would have been more interesting. But him trying to say that 3 drunk teenagers were the masterminds… Come on. He has religious trauma, let the man believe he’s the devil and he’s there to do the devil’s work.

I also didn’t love the doppelgänger aspect. I didn’t like it in the movie Lake Mungo (you can tell it inspired most of this book) and I really don’t think it works here the way he was intending. Going from a ghostly supernatural theme to every day true crime then adding in the doppelgänger randomly, it really didn’t mesh well for me.

All that being said, I did actually like it. I just wish it had been taken in a different direction.

Content Warnings

uhhlexiconic's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.75

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'.

Content Warnings

jess2obsess's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

Content Warnings

phou's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

Content Warnings

matt4hire's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

Content Warnings

killmoore_'s review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

Content Warnings