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leexpenandpages's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Struggling with all-consuming rage, Jane North-Robinson feels chilled by more than just the autumn air when she and her mother move to her mother's childhood home, where Jane must dig up her mother's secrets to understand what is happening.
🏚📚🌹🎒🪦👻👩👧🎃😭
👍🏻 RECOMMENDATION:
💛 READ IF you've got nothing else, if it works for a reading challenge, etc.
💬 FAVORITE QUOTES:
• Pg. 201
do books taste like roses?
A flash of the earth with everything destroyed except this house, the last building standing, and Jane within it, trapped inside its walls, not really caring anymore whether she made it out or not.
She imagined the words dissolving off the paper and sinking into her bloodstream. She imagined her body filled with words. Made up of them. Words instead of blood, words instead of organs.
👓 FORMAT:
📖
📑 COMMENTS:
• The main characters are complex and flawed. Jane's friends are heartwarming and supportive.
• Jane is frustrating slow to figure out what happened, leaping to illogical conclusions for the sake of continuing the mystery.
• I mostly agree with the Booklist quote on the back, which reads, "Leno blends Agatha Christie and Shirley Jackson for a narrative that ranges from unsettling to genuinely terrifying." (I did not find the narrative terrifying but otherwise agree.)
• The book starts a little too slow, and it ends a little too quickly, but the middle is well-paced.
• Race is poorly represented. Some of the characters seem like they were originally intended to be POCs but were changed to white or the author used POC aesthetics. The black characters are black only in description of skin tone.
Graphic: Chronic illness, Bullying, Murder, Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Grief, Addiction, and Mental illness
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Suicide, Pregnancy, Animal death, Violence, Self harm, and Cursing
Minor: Alcohol, Death of parent, Blood, and Classism
madamenovelist's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Child death, Mental illness, Grief, and Death
Moderate: Violence
kaleighmadden's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Death of parent and Child death
Moderate: Grief and Mental illness
quercine's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child death, Death, Blood, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Self harm, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Body horror, Bullying, Gaslighting, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Suicide, Vomit, and Violence
Minor: Confinement
alibrareads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
She couldn’t remember the first book she had eaten.
That’s one of the best/most interesting opening sentences I’ve ever read, honestly. My least favorite aspect is the trope of the mom being frustratingly uncommunicative/purposefully hiding information from the main character. The phrase “secret de Polichinelle” (aka open secret) is brought up in this book, and it plays a big role in the tension throughout it, but it also caused a bit of frustration on my part (just as it did to Jane).
Phew, that ending! I’ve read that some people felt it was too fast and abrupt, but I felt like the snowballing at the end was paced perfectly and it ended delightfully ominously. The last 50-ish pages did feel fast in relation to the first 250-ish pages, granted. This was a pretty slow build-up to the reveals, and there was a good amount of slice-of-life. Aside from the creepy parts, this book was primarily about grief and loss and how it affects people, and coping mechanisms. It was really sad actually. And the writing was simple but evoked a wide range of emotions really well.
Jane is an unreliable character, occasionally losing time and unsure if what she is seeing is real or not, but in my opinion there are real supernatural elements to this and not just vibes/seeing things!
There are a couple things from the climax that aren’t addressed
YouTube: https://youtu.be/mpw2uHd2d2o
Moderate: Grief and Death of parent
ilaxaria's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Grief, Murder, and Death
Moderate: Alcohol and Suicide
limdurlu's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
1.5
Graphic: Grief, Child death, Animal death, and Death of parent
Moderate: Murder and Suicide
greenlivingaudioworm's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, Grief, Death, and Pregnancy
paulineerika's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.5
Graphic: Mental illness, Grief, Death, and Child death
Minor: Suicide
llyrian's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
It was beautifully written and atmospheric, and when I get goosebumps and a prickle on the back of my neck from a horror story it really means something,
but I saw the plottwist coming very early on, and the ending, like I said, wasn't great.
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Violence, and Bullying
Minor: Alcohol