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alexisgarcia's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
tense
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
1.0
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Eating disorder, Medical content, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Death of parent, Alcoholism, Drug use, Drug abuse, Grief, and Medical trauma
james1star's review against another edition
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.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
Minor: Death of parent, Alcohol, Eating disorder, Drug use, Cursing, and Cancer
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