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ripxw's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore
Moderate: Body horror
Minor: Car accident, Kidnapping, Child death, Genocide, and Death
abookwormwithwine's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
4.25/5
Road of Bones by Christopher Golden has a bit of a slower start, but I was invested immediately, and I finished it in one sitting! The story gradually becomes creepier and creepier, and I don't know if I would want to read it at night all alone. It had a nice mix of elements for me and felt part supernatural suspense, part horror, and part thriller while also having a great ghost aspect as well. The cover of it is what immediately caught and held my attention and now after having read the book, makes perfect sense and is quite fitting. I virtually felt like I was in Siberia the entire time myself, and I loved Teig and his cameraman Prentiss as well as their banter in the first part of the story. While we start with just Teig's viewpoint, that does change, but I honestly loved the book from every viewpoint. After reading the acknowledgments I also went down the rabbit hole that is the Kolyma Highway trying to find the article that Golden mentions. After reading the book and the Googling I did, I am now really fascinated with this tragedy of a road.
The pacing did start out a little on the slow side as previously mentioned but picks up as the story goes on, and by the time I was at the end, it felt very fast indeed. The audiobook is a real winner here, and the narrator Robert Fass did an unbelievable job. Between his narration and Golden's writing, I was practically glued to the book and couldn't wait to see where it would go next. It does get a little on the gross and violent side which is where it started to give me those horror vibes, and I don't think anyone with a weak stomach will be able to handle it. Road of Bones also got more than a little weird and there was a lot going on, but it all worked together for me in the best possible way. I have no idea why I am only just now reading Golden but now I will most certainly be reading more of him and can't help but agree with Stephen King's blurb about this being atmospheric and creepy as hell.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Road of Bones by Christopher Golden has a bit of a slower start, but I was invested immediately, and I finished it in one sitting! The story gradually becomes creepier and creepier, and I don't know if I would want to read it at night all alone. It had a nice mix of elements for me and felt part supernatural suspense, part horror, and part thriller while also having a great ghost aspect as well. The cover of it is what immediately caught and held my attention and now after having read the book, makes perfect sense and is quite fitting. I virtually felt like I was in Siberia the entire time myself, and I loved Teig and his cameraman Prentiss as well as their banter in the first part of the story. While we start with just Teig's viewpoint, that does change, but I honestly loved the book from every viewpoint. After reading the acknowledgments I also went down the rabbit hole that is the Kolyma Highway trying to find the article that Golden mentions. After reading the book and the Googling I did, I am now really fascinated with this tragedy of a road.
The pacing did start out a little on the slow side as previously mentioned but picks up as the story goes on, and by the time I was at the end, it felt very fast indeed. The audiobook is a real winner here, and the narrator Robert Fass did an unbelievable job. Between his narration and Golden's writing, I was practically glued to the book and couldn't wait to see where it would go next. It does get a little on the gross and violent side which is where it started to give me those horror vibes, and I don't think anyone with a weak stomach will be able to handle it. Road of Bones also got more than a little weird and there was a lot going on, but it all worked together for me in the best possible way. I have no idea why I am only just now reading Golden but now I will most certainly be reading more of him and can't help but agree with Stephen King's blurb about this being atmospheric and creepy as hell.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore
booknerdnative's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Vomit, and Gore
stephie_lovesbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Car accident, Death, and Gore
thesaltiestlibrarian's review against another edition
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
What if I presented to you a book set in Salem, Massachusetts and talked all about its rich history as one of the most tragic towns in New England's early history? What would you expect to see in this book? Giants? Talking mice? How about Cthulhu?
Well, when you tell me I'm going to read a book about the Road of Bones in Siberia--a highway that was literally paved over the dead gulag prisoners who fell while constructing it under Stalin's regime--I better damn well have a ghost-revenge story set in the coldest drive on Earth. Not whatever this was.
So Felix Teigen and his buddy Jack Prentiss are setting out to make a documentary about life and death on the Kolyma Highway, affectionately nicknamed the Road of Bones. To elaborate on the name, from 1932 to 1953 gulag prisoners in labor camps were forced to construct the highway. Since the road is set on permafrost, whenever one of the roughly 250,000 to 1,000,000 people who perished building this road died, the bones were built into or around the highway, cuz diggin' holes in Siberian winter is a bitch. Why was this road constructed in such unforgiving conditions, you might ask? Well, money! Duh! Rich uranium deposits!
Teig and Prentiss are here to document life and death on the road, they say, but also Teig is looking for ghost stories, I guess? They never specify exactly why they're there and don't talk about a shooting schedule, a script, a rough outline of their expectations, nothing. Essentially what we have is two grown men running around with an expensive camera saying, "BRO, ARE YOU FILMING THIS?!" And it gets real tedious.
The concept of this novel is fantastic. Documentarians show up someplace that people don't normally spare a thought for, the supernatural nature of the region/road pops up, and crap goes down hardcore. It's the execution that leaves a lot to be desired.
The characters are cardboard cutouts. Teig's motivation for trying to save Una reads as halfhearted and thrown-in. Nari, the girl Teig and Prentiss save from being stranded on the road, is the most complex character, but because of the stuffy main characters she doesn't get enough time to shine. Prentiss is even more interesting than Teig. By the end of the novel I hated Felix Teigen and was firmly convinced he's the kind of guy who thinks ketchup is spicy and actually believes that plastic straws are the reason climate change is intensifying.
Felix Teigen would have a man-bun and call it "cool" because he visited Japan once. He's the kind of guy who won't eat sushi because it kills fish, then buy all of his designer skinny jeans on Amazon. He only knows "Wonderwall" on ukulele and calls himself a self-made musician. He would unironically use pickup lines like, "Are you my appendix? Cuz I have this painful urge to take you out." He probably has "Entrepreneur" in his Twitter bio.
Felix Teigen is That Guy. And he is the worst.
The thing that kills me about this book is that a random character who ends up adding absolutely jack diddly squat to the story takes up such a huge chunk of it. Ludmilla was useless and I cannot be persuaded otherwise.
The author takes so much time to describe the cold that he forgets to insert the unique cultural narratives to be found in this region. We get zero taste of Siberian culture until the last 20% of the novel, when some folklore is randomly thrown in for some reason and even then some of it isn't correct.
Ugh, guys. Wrong focal points, flat characters, setting that's too vague to be one place...this one was a solid miss.
What if I presented to you a book set in Salem, Massachusetts and talked all about its rich history as one of the most tragic towns in New England's early history? What would you expect to see in this book? Giants? Talking mice? How about Cthulhu?
Well, when you tell me I'm going to read a book about the Road of Bones in Siberia--a highway that was literally paved over the dead gulag prisoners who fell while constructing it under Stalin's regime--I better damn well have a ghost-revenge story set in the coldest drive on Earth. Not whatever this was.
So Felix Teigen and his buddy Jack Prentiss are setting out to make a documentary about life and death on the Kolyma Highway, affectionately nicknamed the Road of Bones. To elaborate on the name, from 1932 to 1953 gulag prisoners in labor camps were forced to construct the highway. Since the road is set on permafrost, whenever one of the roughly 250,000 to 1,000,000 people who perished building this road died, the bones were built into or around the highway, cuz diggin' holes in Siberian winter is a bitch. Why was this road constructed in such unforgiving conditions, you might ask? Well, money! Duh! Rich uranium deposits!
Teig and Prentiss are here to document life and death on the road, they say, but also Teig is looking for ghost stories, I guess? They never specify exactly why they're there and don't talk about a shooting schedule, a script, a rough outline of their expectations, nothing. Essentially what we have is two grown men running around with an expensive camera saying, "BRO, ARE YOU FILMING THIS?!" And it gets real tedious.
The concept of this novel is fantastic. Documentarians show up someplace that people don't normally spare a thought for, the supernatural nature of the region/road pops up, and crap goes down hardcore. It's the execution that leaves a lot to be desired.
The characters are cardboard cutouts. Teig's motivation for trying to save Una reads as halfhearted and thrown-in. Nari, the girl Teig and Prentiss save from being stranded on the road, is the most complex character, but because of the stuffy main characters she doesn't get enough time to shine. Prentiss is even more interesting than Teig. By the end of the novel I hated Felix Teigen and was firmly convinced he's the kind of guy who thinks ketchup is spicy and actually believes that plastic straws are the reason climate change is intensifying.
Felix Teigen would have a man-bun and call it "cool" because he visited Japan once. He's the kind of guy who won't eat sushi because it kills fish, then buy all of his designer skinny jeans on Amazon. He only knows "Wonderwall" on ukulele and calls himself a self-made musician. He would unironically use pickup lines like, "Are you my appendix? Cuz I have this painful urge to take you out." He probably has "Entrepreneur" in his Twitter bio.
Felix Teigen is That Guy. And he is the worst.
The thing that kills me about this book is that a random character who ends up adding absolutely jack diddly squat to the story takes up such a huge chunk of it. Ludmilla was useless and I cannot be persuaded otherwise.
The author takes so much time to describe the cold that he forgets to insert the unique cultural narratives to be found in this region. We get zero taste of Siberian culture until the last 20% of the novel, when some folklore is randomly thrown in for some reason and even then some of it isn't correct.
Ugh, guys. Wrong focal points, flat characters, setting that's too vague to be one place...this one was a solid miss.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Car accident, Cursing, Death, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Gore
Moderate: Vomit
Minor: Child death
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