Reviews with content warning for Medical trauma - The Sanatorium

Probably not the best choice for me as I don't handle scary books well. Several tense moments.
Also, several instances of "the character saw something and then they knew..." but what they saw/heard/ec isn't shared with the audience (which drives me crazy)

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annieliz's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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addiemidala's review

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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fictionalalex's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.0

“Grief is like a series of bombs exploding, one after another. Every hour, a new detonation. Shock after shock after shock.”

Another bookstagram-made-me-do-it! I picked this one up a few weeks ago as an audiobook but did not get into it. When my library director suggested it for my book club's August pick, I thought "why not"?

But to be honest, this one just flopped for me.
I loved the premise. A creepy, sanatorium-turned-hotel on a remote mountain in the Swiss Alps. A murder, an avalanche. Super spooky!

But I did not love what was done with the premise. I felt that besides that, there was no real atmosphere to the hotel or book. I didn't feel situated in the novel.

The main character, Elin, was not my favourite. I struggled to relate to her. And I found myself constantly thinking "why are you telling people what you have found out?" I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and ask if her brother/boyfriend/hotel staff really needed to hear all the information of the investigation, considering they still counted as suspects.

The other characters felt flat to me. And that really contributed to the ending. It just didn't work. It felt kind of out of place.

Overall, it as an okay read. I just couldn't really get into it.

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laurenyawney's review

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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

3.0

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fungivibes's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

2.5

I really did not enjoy this one. I didn't like any of the characters and I found the main character completely unbelievable at all as a detective, even one on break for psychological reasons. She made a lot of stupid mistakes and missed very obvious clues. Also I found the writer had a problem with telling instead of showing and I felt like the plot really dragged and could have been cut down some

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emmjay's review

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mysterious slow-paced

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

2.5

I mean, I read it. Had this not been for a book club I tremendously enjoy I probably would have given up around the 20% mark. I just didn’t care for any of the characters. The mystery wasn’t holding my attention, because until the halfway mark there was very little mystery. And I found the writing mediocre. I suppose the writer may have backed herself into a corner on this one, there are only so many ways to describe snow, after all. However, that is no excuse for the phrase “ his/her hair was scraped away from his/her face” being used upwards of 5 times. We also got several people looking at their own reflections and describing their physical appearance to themselves in classic literary cliche.

Took about halfway for what felt like the “real” mystery plot to kick in. The majority before it feels like a lot of subplot that gets relatively little payout.

After the halfway mark each chapter follows the same pattern: the main character suspects someone of hiding something, she confronts them, there is expository dialog, the character thinks to herself— by stating each time she is thinking to herself— can it be true? What are they hiding? I need to know more. I have a hunch but am I right? I don’t know enough yet. She’ll start to have a thought, it will be described as her having a thought, but then “the fragments” will “drift away.” Every. Single. Time. No clues given to the reader. Then the chapter ends with her seeing something shocking that won’t be revealed until the start of the next chapter. Rinse and repeat until the end. If you’ve read this paragraph, you’ve now read a huge chunk of the book.

Handily the culprit does do an extremely long explanatory monologue at the very end that lays out every (often quite flimsy) motivation AND tries to shoehorn in a message not present in the rest of the book, AND our cop protagonist just stands there and listens to them, so there’s that.

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