Reviews with content warning for Death - The Pallbearers Club

i am incredibly disappointed to say that i absolutely hated this. i thought the characters were unbearably miserable, the plot was lack luster, the dialogue was unrealistic and cringey, and the ending was disappointing. i did not expect to dislike this even close to as much as i did.

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james1star's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

2.5

This book was… okayish I guess. I’m not too sure on how to feel about it but on the whole I didn’t particularly like it very much. At it’s core is a memoir written by Art Barbra called The Pallbearers Club which he is writing later in his life (around 40-ish I think but cannot remember) detailing his life from teenage years during the 80s in New England until now (for him). Art is a loner and deals with scoliosis and generally a below average person in his town and school. He comes up with the idea of starting a pallbearers club to attend funerals of relatively unknown people and it’s here he meets our other mc Mercy who is ‘cool’ but also a weird character as she takes Polaroid pictures of the corpses. I did like the friendship between them and parts of the 80s era but like the whole book my interest just dropped off as it developed. There’s a vampiric horror element to the story and this is what Mercy believes Art is misremembering and misrepresenting in his ‘memoir’ so she writes notes in the margins and at the end of each chapter on how to improve the book.

It was a fine and somewhat intriguing book but it was quite a bore in all honesty. There really isn’t much to the characters or storyline that kept me wanting more. In the acknowledgments, Tremblay says he is quite like Art and I do see this because a lot of this book I don’t think would appeal to that many people, it did feel quite personal and I just wasn’t interested at all about heavy mental and all these failed bands. The horror elements were again alright but wasn’t anything special, just a lot of the same thing rehashed in some way. I took a while to get into the book, then it got a bit more interesting but it just fell flat again. My favourite part was probably just the general idea of it with a ‘memoir’ and it’s edits but that’s about it.

Final note: the fact Art put up 123 flyers is just so horrible I can’t, just please no don’t do this to me! At least make it 120 or 125 but not 123 - ewwww!!! Also there are quite a few other irritating and cringe elements. For this I’ve decided to round down instead of up on Goodreads.

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kshertz's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

What a super cool interesting concept! The idea of someone writing a manuscript and someone else finding it and adding their notes about themselves in the book? Add in the supernatural? TWO unreliable narrators?! I loved it. You spend the whole books trying to find out what’s real and who’s telling the truth. I loved it. You don’t find out to the very end. And even then… you can’t be sure!

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thisbookisbananas's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious slow-paced

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

2.75

The Pallbearers Club is my first Paul Tremblay book, and I’m not sure if this book was the best first choice. I liked the writing, but the story just wasn’t for me. The Pallbearers Club feels like an experimental amalgamation of the author’s retrospective and a speculative fiction. I think if I had read his other books before The Pallbearers Club, I would have enjoyed it more? I’m guessing this is more of a wink and a nod to readers who are his frequent fans. I plan on picking up this book again after I’ve read a few of his previous books. Maybe it will feel different then?

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daffodilcherry's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

I liked the concept of this book (a memoir where another person is editing/editorialising the events described via notation) more than I liked the actual plot/book itself. That being said, the book was able to ensnare me and keep my dutiful attention while I read it. The two main characters were complex, and purposefully unlikeable. I liked the more supernatural aspects of the story in the second half, but wish that they were a little more exciting. As far as horror moments, the book was more of a kind of drawn-out suspense than 'scary'.
Wheelhouse items: unreliable narrator, conflicting narrators, meta narrative devices, toxic? friendships, 'is this supernatural or not?', punk music scene, psychological horror.

Content Warnings

mandkips's review

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dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.25

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rachelunabridged's review against another edition

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reflective 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

1.5

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