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maeverose's review against another edition
2.0
These are getting more disappointing with every book for me.
Both this one and the last one do this thing where 80% through, the solution to their problem isn’t at all clear to the reader or the characters. There’s no clear game in this one. We never see the smiling man. They’re just meandering around trying to survive, occasionally running into trouble. With this one especially, there was barely any plot. Scenes had to be drawn out longer than necessary to fill the book out. It made the book very boring.
Brian was the main pov character for this one, which was an improvement from the last book, but I still felt like he barely had any personality. Coco still ended up finding a lot of the solutions to things. (Speaking of Coco, I’m really starting to get annoyed with how often they have to mention how tiny and unassuming she is. We get it. She’s not like other girls.)
I’m unsure now if I wanna bother reading the last book. With the way this one ended, it feels a bit shitty to stop here, and I’d hope the conclusion would have more plot, but being as every single one so far has annoyed me in some way… idk if it’s worth it.
Very small nit pick: What was up with the part when they asked ‘wonder who the skeleton was? Must’ve been Sheehan.’ When the axe man (Sheehan) clearly called the skeleton Tommy multiple times… And Tommy was mentioned in the journals they literally just read? Was it supposed to be a plot twist that axe man was Sheehan? Even 11 year olds could easily see that coming…
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness, Ableism, Child abuse, Death, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Gore, Excrement, Death of parent, Animal death, Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, and Body shaming
Poisoning, boat accident
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