Reviews

What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher

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awl_my_rage's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative mysterious relaxing medium-paced

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

4.5

summertimereads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

applesodaperson's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book was honestly a strange one. It was okay but wasn't amazing.
First, I'll start with the good stuff. The use of neopronouns was so interesting! And honestly unlike anything I have seen in media before. The main character is nonbinary and uses the pronouns associated only with soldiers. And I think this would be a really good way to introduce people to how neopronouns are used in normal sentence structures and writing. Because this is something that can be hard for people to understand. And having a main character that is non binary is just good LGBTQ+ representation in general.
This book also had some cool body horror elements with the mushrooms and mold. But I will say that the

plot twist of the woman being dead the whole time but just reanimated was a little bit predictable. Like obviously something spooky was going on.

The secondary characters were also very forgettable, especially the doctor guy. He just didn't stand out at all to me.
The setting and time period of this book was also really confusing. Based on the summary, I thought it was going to be set in the modern day, but I was of course confused when I started reading, so I had to google the time period.
Overall, this book was just a bit underwhelming and forgettable, but I guess it would be good if you needed a spooky book to read in one sitting. It's definitely not the worst book I have ever read.
Read from the Provo Library.

Content Warnings

saltyair_reads's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I have never read The Fall of the House of Usher, so have no real basis for judgement on the retelling aspect.

Taking it for what it is, I enjoyed this story. It was quick and entertaining. Atmospheric, gothic vibes abound. Creepy fungus and weird little hares? Sure.

I don't know if this will stick out to me in the future or whether I will continue with the series. I did pick up a book of Poe today for a more critical comparison.

Content Warnings

rorymoth's review against another edition

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3.0

While I did enjoy this for what it is I guess it’s just not one of my favorite retellings by Kingfisher. I did; however, love the queer representation and found the writing easy to read (even with three loud children & my partner yelling at a video game lol). Plus the main character’s internal monologue was rather amusing. I still wish to read the second book because I DID enjoy this one—I guess it just didn’t outshine the other retellings. It was still good.