Reviews with content warning for Body horror - When the Reckoning Comes

When the Reckoning Comes is a brutally honest book that looks at the US’s history with slavery and does a great job paralleling it to the systemic racism that African Americans face in modern times. The book can be hard to read at times, but it is meant to be that way. The scenes are supposed to leave you shocked and devastated, so I think that aspect was really well handled. I also think that the evolution the main character went through in the book was interesting and well-developed. The back half of the book had a dark, eery atmosphere that I enjoyed, and it had a few twists and turns that surprised me. Overall, I think it was a really great thematic book, but I think the pacing and tone throughout was a bit off.

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veeples's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Truly just an OK book. I was surprised by the addition of

ghosts being a literal plot point

which was interesting, but otherwise, its just fine.

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calatheacat's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.25

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molsreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

4.0

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kestrel's review

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3.5

The premise is so cool: A plantation is turned into a museum with whitewashed reenactments of that period. The Black main character, Mira, is invited to a wedding by her white childhood friend, Celine. The wedding is to be held on the plantation. Mira decides to go mainly because her other old friend and crush, Jesse, will be there. There are mysterious deaths surrounding the plantation and numerous ghost stories. The same ghost stories that led to the end of Mira/Celine/Jesse friendship back in the day.

This book was good, but had the potential to be great. I wish the author hadn't over-explained obvious things, and had let the scenes speak for themselves. It got annoying pretty quickly.

I would still recommend the book, since it sheds light on horrors of both past and present times.

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toofondofbooks_'s review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This book is short but it packed a huge gut punch for me. I couldn't read it at night because I would get too upset and overwhelmed by the detail and sheer horror of everything that was happening, but I still really liked it. The writing was immersive and gorgeous, made even better by listening to the audiobook while I read along physically. I usually hate romantic subplots in thrillers and horror, but I honestly thought that the one happening here was believable and I was rooting for it. The only thing that gives me pause is that I wanted a little more from this ending and there are some things that I would like clarification on re: the supernatural element. In some ways, I totally get why it ended the way it did and why I won't get that clarification, but it would still be nice to have it not end so abruptly and to have some answers. Overall, this was a good one. Authors using horror to address real life issues are one of my favorite types of authors to read so I will definitely look out for more from this author.

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brookey8888's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This isn’t horror like scary ghost and slashers. It’s the horror of history and men.

The start of this was kind of boring I’m not going to lie because nothing really happened. But the last like 20% had my jaw on the floor multiple times and not because it’s necessarily shocking, but because it was so disturbing and anger inducing.

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