493 reviews for:

Empty Smiles

Katherine Arden

3.71 AVERAGE

dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

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readyordot's profile picture

readyordot's review

4.0
adventurous dark mysterious tense 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: No
dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced
dark emotional lighthearted medium-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

Just as fun as the other ones, but the ending felt super rushed, unfortunately.
kelly24lox's profile picture

kelly24lox's review

3.0
fast-paced

Страхотен финал на една страхотна поредица. Не знам колко е десетка , като се има на предвид че тази книжка ме държа на нокти до края , но все пак я обожавам. Тази поредица на Катрин Арден опрелено си заслужава и много се радвам че я прочетох .
challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Pretty good conclusion to this series. The creepy aspect turned back up in this last one, but there were a lot of interesting threads that felt truncated. I wonder if there was a sharp cutoff for page count, being as it is, a quite younger facing middle grade book. This would have benefited from 100 more pages to really flesh out the carnival scenes, and the thread with the parents. The ending was so abrupt I felt like it could have been another fakeout by the smiling man. Wish there had been a call back to the Cerberus character. 

All in all, I very much enjoyed this series, and Katherine Arden is an amazing author, regardless of the demographic or genre.
boranroni's profile picture

boranroni's review

2.0

Worst in the series. It wasn't long enough to wrap it up properly. It has a very good beginning but the ending feels rushed. All of the parent's stuff feels pointless because of the ending. Since this is the last book I think it should have been explained what is the deal with Olivia's mom. I wish this was 100 or so pages longer...