Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

I really wasn’t enjoying this book for ages. I found it difficult to get into and the fatphobia when the narrator was inhabiting a fat body was astounding and put me off a lot. The last third, however, I found much more gripping and the end satisfying, if a little cheesy and preachy.

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valpyre's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.5

[audiobook]
2.5 stars

i gotta say, the immense fatphobia and ableist language pretty much soured this entire book for me.

i found the parts past the halfway mark the most interesting, basically most of the parts where things are being revealed and bishop collected concrete information. but overall this was super tedious to me, even with the reveal/explanation of the bigger picture.

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iviarelle'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? It's complicated

2.0

I really wanted to like this. I tried. I gave it every chance I could find it in me to give.

I just kinda can't. And it's for one primary and one secondary reason.

Firstly, and most obviously, this book doesn't offer its female characters any depth. Every woman on the page is a one note tune. Even in the twists that involve a woman, they're the most overused and unsubtle kind of tropes. If depth is attributed to a woman, it's only through telling us she's more, not by showing us. And that's a problem.

The second problem is... Less widely recognized. The men in this story don't get a whole lot of depth either, which is a little obfuscated by the much wider range of types of men that exist in the story. But, some of those men are horrific tropes walking.

Take Ravencourt: every moment spent with him is spent thinking about how fat he is. Almost every paragraph includes some remark about shameful gross obesity or how difficult his being shamefully obese makes it to walk down a flat hallway. While it's true that being fat is hard, there's WAY too much judgement and downright fatphobia or fatmisia in every line of the parts where he's mentioned.

Take the drug dealing doctor, the privileged rapist whose mother buys his way out of trouble again and again... It's all part of a pattern and not one that flatters the author's sender of creativity or knowledge of human nature.

You could argue that the point of the story is to be flat and unsubtle, but I don't buy it. I think this could have been much more interesting if the author had given a damn. And giving a damn is the least we should expect from people or books these days.

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thatpine's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

I got this book as a present from a friend who raved about it. I, however, did not find it nearly as worthwhile to read.

I found the ultimate premise at the end of the book to be intriguing and a new idea, but the amount of energy and frustration it took me to get there was far too much. Reading in some spots was a chore, and there were so many thing happening at once it got confusing. Further, the rules for the plot I found to be lacking and not clear at all, making the story even more muddled.

The fat shaming was easily the worst part.

If you like mysteries that are not necessarily the “norm” and can enjoy a slow pace, once you get halfway through it does get better.

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