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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Read like 15 % of this and couldn't get into it. Should I persevere?
Atmospherically the book is a great vibe, deliciously dark and creative in its exploration of horror. The length, pacing, and lack of any real suspense was what killed it for me. I don’t regret reading it, though, and I’m glad I finished it.
There is a very strong air of mystery about this whole story - not ‘mystery’ in the Sherlock Holmes sense (no one is solving crimes or anything like that), but of the kind that you can’t really place. It just feels incredibly mysterious overall - like, the characters are each very mysterious in their own ways, and they each have their own secrets while sharing a larger secret together.
My main complaint about this book is the length and the pacing. I am tolerant of slow stories, but this one was really far too slow even for me. The slowness worked in some capacities, like how secrets and truths are slowly revealed layer by layer in an excruciatingly tantalizing way. That added to the feeling of unease. For me however there was never truly a feeling of suspense or anticipation, because there isn’t really anything happening. It’s more just an account of these characters’ experiences as they simply try to exist in their little microcosm of a f****d up world. This on its own was interesting enough to me in a socio-psychological sense, and was what kept me reading. This book could’ve been half the length and had the same effect. There was in insane amount of irrelevant fluff that added nothing to the story or character development. It wasn’t painful to get through, because all of the fluff was interspersed with important bits, so you couldn’t just point to which parts are fluff and which aren’t. An example of how this fluff manifests would be Enriquez describing the color of a girl’s dress and how she hadn’t worn a dress like that in so long and how she felt about it for a whole paragraph, and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything. There’s a lot of that. I wish there were more time spent on the cultural history of the occult and more references to make this whole premise feel more real and immersive. As a reader I just felt very distant and clueless about everything. We are kind of stuck with the limited knowledge and perspectives of our oblivious/uninterested main characters, and left wondering about how this all started and how it theoretically would all go back to ancient human history. There is so much untapped potential with all of that in my opinion.
There wasn’t really any emotion in my experience of reading this story. I wasn’t upset when anyone got hurt or died. I felt generally unattached to all of the characters, but part of me thinks that was intentional on Enriquez’s part. Most of the characters are sociopaths and/or psychopaths, some more so than others, so of course we wouldn’t become attached to them. I think Enriquez writes characters pretty well, because they all felt very real to me despite my detachment. None of the characters were particularly good people, save one or two perhaps. But that was well done considering the type of stuff they were involved in.
The ending was super abrupt and rushed. There was nothing that created anticipation or suspense leading up to the final conflict, and there were some frustrating loose ends. I do think despite all of that, the ending was conclusive in a satisfying way, but I wish more time was spent on the lead up and the ending itself because it was by far the most interesting part of the book, but the shortest.
There is a very strong air of mystery about this whole story - not ‘mystery’ in the Sherlock Holmes sense (no one is solving crimes or anything like that), but of the kind that you can’t really place. It just feels incredibly mysterious overall - like, the characters are each very mysterious in their own ways, and they each have their own secrets while sharing a larger secret together.
My main complaint about this book is the length and the pacing. I am tolerant of slow stories, but this one was really far too slow even for me. The slowness worked in some capacities, like how secrets and truths are slowly revealed layer by layer in an excruciatingly tantalizing way. That added to the feeling of unease. For me however there was never truly a feeling of suspense or anticipation, because there isn’t really anything happening. It’s more just an account of these characters’ experiences as they simply try to exist in their little microcosm of a f****d up world. This on its own was interesting enough to me in a socio-psychological sense, and was what kept me reading. This book could’ve been half the length and had the same effect. There was in insane amount of irrelevant fluff that added nothing to the story or character development. It wasn’t painful to get through, because all of the fluff was interspersed with important bits, so you couldn’t just point to which parts are fluff and which aren’t. An example of how this fluff manifests would be Enriquez describing the color of a girl’s dress and how she hadn’t worn a dress like that in so long and how she felt about it for a whole paragraph, and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything. There’s a lot of that. I wish there were more time spent on the cultural history of the occult and more references to make this whole premise feel more real and immersive. As a reader I just felt very distant and clueless about everything. We are kind of stuck with the limited knowledge and perspectives of our oblivious/uninterested main characters, and left wondering about how this all started and how it theoretically would all go back to ancient human history. There is so much untapped potential with all of that in my opinion.
There wasn’t really any emotion in my experience of reading this story. I wasn’t upset when anyone got hurt or died. I felt generally unattached to all of the characters, but part of me thinks that was intentional on Enriquez’s part. Most of the characters are sociopaths and/or psychopaths, some more so than others, so of course we wouldn’t become attached to them. I think Enriquez writes characters pretty well, because they all felt very real to me despite my detachment. None of the characters were particularly good people, save one or two perhaps. But that was well done considering the type of stuff they were involved in.
The ending was super abrupt and rushed. There was nothing that created anticipation or suspense leading up to the final conflict, and there were some frustrating loose ends. I do think despite all of that, the ending was conclusive in a satisfying way, but I wish more time was spent on the lead up and the ending itself because it was by far the most interesting part of the book, but the shortest.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Disturbing, unusual, surprising. I didn't LOVE this but liked it. Some of the most affecting gore and horror I've read in awhile. Avoided predictable character beats and went in other more interesting directions instead.
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes