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priscillarobock's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Death, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicide, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Drug abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Suicide attempt
blewballoon's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I was intrigued and a little intimidated by the premise of this book, but the intimidation wasn't needed. The author does a good job of dropping the reader into the story and having the POV character figure things out along the way. This book feels like a mystery-thriller, and leans more one way or the other depending on which body the main character is inhabiting and how that host's mind works. I did sometimes get annoyed by the footman popping up to be a malicious murderous nuisance in scenes where there was already danger and tension, so he felt like overkill. The descriptions of people are mostly grotesque and include mentions of being fleshy, wrinkled, or gaunt. If it's a maid, they are almost universally described like "[hair color] spilling out of her cap" on introduction. Minor complaint aside, the descriptions across the book in general are very immersive and quickly get you a mental picture of the scene. I was very absorbed in trying to put the pieces of the mystery together, but didn't solve it for myself before the reveal. I don't love when a murderer's motivation is basically just that they're a psychopath, that feels lame. There was so much to the mystery that there should have been enough for a more compelling motivation. I also don't know how I feel about the explanations offered for the premise I remember feeling a little taken out of the story when the plague doctors spoke to each other. I never got a good sense of what time period this was. It seemed like an afterlife thing, like maybe they were in purgatory, but then it sounded like this was the normal prison system for living people??
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Gun violence, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Death
Moderate: Fatphobia
Minor: Alcohol, Classism, Rape, Sexual assault, and Drug abuse
dorin_d's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
initially slow to start but after 3/4 if the way through i found that i could not put it down! a murder mystery with a time loop at its centre made reading it sometimes confusing, but still enjoyable. i do wonder if the book may have too many plot twists, especially when we find out this loop is happening inside a prison as punishment for inmates, like a black mirror episode, as i found this introduced more questions than answers.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Gun violence, and Violence
Moderate: Drug use and Drug abuse
Minor: Rape and Sexual assault
carolined314's review against another edition
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
This is a very unique and interesting mystery. I found the prevalence of cruel, thoughtless men and the fatphobia, combined with helpless and yet demonized women hard to take.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence
Moderate: Addiction, Murder, Gun violence, and Death
Minor: Child death
samisreading's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Fatphobia, Animal death, Blood, and Gun violence
mpbookreviews's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Despite there being a detailed map at the start of the book and multiple descriptions of the surrounding area I still can’t picture what Blackheath looks like in my head because it was confusing
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Grief, Blood, Gun violence, and Violence
jaysaysnope's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
A lot of this books seems opaque for opacity’s sake. It was extremely puzzling, more of an out-and-out mystery than I was expecting, and I actually ended the book with more questions about how this world works. It was well-written and the suspense was compelling, but the author’s ending left me wanting.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Suicide attempt, Gore, Blood, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Stalking, Murder, Gun violence, Child death, and Death
Minor: Rape
breadbummer's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
On the whole, it's an interesting premise. What if someone took your run-of-the-mill Victorian murder mystery but twisted it a little to make it so the same person was living the same day over and over again in other people's bodies? In my case, as someone who's always found sleuth stories about rich people getting murdered at fancy parties to be cheesy and repetitive, I found this story to be...well, cheesy and repetitive. Not repetitive in itself, but it uses the types of characters and themes typically found in this genre.
As far as content goes, whenever a cis man writes a book like this with not a few female characters in it, I expect a "she breasted boobily down the stairs" moment to show itself before too terribly long or at least for pretty much all the women to fall for the central male character (no matter how strongly they're written) but, to my pleasant surprise, I don't ever actually remember this happening. HOWEVER!!! If you're particularly sensitive to fatphobia, don't bother even touching this book, much less opening it up. The rather long section in which the main character goes through the day as Ravencourt is punctuated pretty much every sentence or two with disgust of the host's body. It got to be so uncomfortable that I almost dropped the book entirely if it weren't for the fact that I was behind on my reading goal.
I just finished it like half an hour ago, so my take on the ending might still need some time to cook, but I think I enjoyed it. I certainly got got about who the culprit ended up being (which took me some time to appreciate more), and I thought the idea of this whole scenario of Blackheath being kind of likethe episode "White Christmas" from Black Mirror absolutely fascinating to say the least (still wondering if the events at the mansion actually happened earlier on in the timeline and that the plague doctors gained control of it or if absolutely everything was conjured up by them). I was originally gonna go with a rating of 3.25, but these final twists bumped it up a bit.
As far as content goes, whenever a cis man writes a book like this with not a few female characters in it, I expect a "she breasted boobily down the stairs" moment to show itself before too terribly long or at least for pretty much all the women to fall for the central male character (no matter how strongly they're written) but, to my pleasant surprise, I don't ever actually remember this happening. HOWEVER!!! If you're particularly sensitive to fatphobia, don't bother even touching this book, much less opening it up. The rather long section in which the main character goes through the day as Ravencourt is punctuated pretty much every sentence or two with disgust of the host's body. It got to be so uncomfortable that I almost dropped the book entirely if it weren't for the fact that I was behind on my reading goal.
I just finished it like half an hour ago, so my take on the ending might still need some time to cook, but I think I enjoyed it. I certainly got got about who the culprit ended up being (which took me some time to appreciate more), and I thought the idea of this whole scenario of Blackheath being kind of like
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Fatphobia, Murder, Child death, Suicide, Body shaming, Stalking, and Classism
Moderate: Self harm, Gun violence, Confinement, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Sexual assault, Drug use, Animal death, Rape, Car accident, Blood, and Body horror
tm400's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- 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
this book is a kind of groundhog day meets murder mystery type of novel, and i enjoyed it a lot! i love books written from multiple points of view and although this book is *techincally* from the point of view of one man, the fact that he gradually adopts more and more characteristics of his hosts was really intriguing to me. i loved the last hundred or so pages of the book the most, and really loved the twist. i really appreciate the intricacies of this book - but in the same vein, i would say my main struggle with this book was its length. i'm not a super big long-book reader and this book was approaching the cusp of too long for me. i'm glad the story was as interesting as it was because that helped me get through it for sure!
i'm giving this one 4/5 stars!
(my copy had 458 pages)
i'm giving this one 4/5 stars!
(my copy had 458 pages)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Murder, Gun violence, Suicide attempt, and Death
shree's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Murder, Death, Blood, Gun violence, and Violence
Moderate: Drug use, Sexual harassment, Addiction, Self harm, and Child death
Minor: Rape