493 reviews for:

Empty Smiles

Katherine Arden

3.71 AVERAGE

cathepsut's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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Last part, Ollie is behind the mist after she was taken by the Smiling Man at the end of the last novella. A travelling carnival, missing kids, scary and very creepy clowns. Brian and Coco trying to rescue Ollie. 

Good, although it was almost mean to make us feel sorry for the Smiling Man. I would have preferred a more spectacular and definite ending. Arden left her options open for another story. I would read it.

This definitely didn‘t help with my general dislike of clowns. 🤡🤡🤡🤡

briamide's review

4.0

adventurous dark tense

jenn_the_unicorn's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous 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

sarahblessing's review

3.0

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I was really really enjoying this last one, it was genuinely pretty creepy, much scarier than the previous three and I was having a great time! then the ending happened so abruptly with so little build up?? it was my fault for not realizing the last like 100 pages of the book were just excerpts from the first three books (which is weird because who would start the very last book in a four book series? what reader would need excerpts from the first three books?? very strange) but I was shocked when I realized it was over, I thought I had missed something. very jarring and rushed end, didn’t care for it. kind of a bummer.

rondasue27's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

amber_lyn's review against another edition

4.75

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A worthy final bool in the series. Ollie gave hers of up to the smiling man and now her friends must work together to get her back. 
I didn’t think I would find the clown setting scary but it did definitely got creepy. 

chairhandle's review against another edition

3.0

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nooo, im so disappointed with the last book of this series. i need another adventures when paul gets involved and who is the smiling man actually. so much left behind unanswered

janeleng's review

3.0

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Beware that the book is not as long as it seems because it ends with the first chapters of the previous three books. I was thoroughly engrossed in Empty Smiles as the kids finally face off against the smiling man, thinking I had another quarter of the book to go. And then it was just…over.

Overall, ending felt rushed and it felt like there was a missed opportunity to explore the backstory and intentions of the smiling man. More than delivers on the clown content though!

megpancoast's review

3.75

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

books_and_keys's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous mysterious tense 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