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jessa57's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-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
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping and Stalking
Moderate: Gaslighting and Violence
antimony's review
mysterious
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
i will be honest, i did not enjoy this book. i could not stand terra. and that's too bad, because i did really like jane anonymous, and i did enjoy welcome to the dark house as well! but terra just kept bothering me.
frankly, until the end, i did not believe her either, and i was sure that [her abduction not being real] would be the reveal. i believed that she had been missing and maybe fallen into the well or something, but i couldn't get over how unrealistic the abduction itself was. not to sound callous, but if a stranger picks someone up off of the side of the road (or breaks into their house to grab them) they are probably going to torture/attack/kill/etc them. not just abandon them in a well. it was so so strange. and i know that it was revealed terra did know him after all, but that was in the last 50 or so pages, and felt so so bizzarre and out of nowhere (i was kinda thinking charley wasn't real either) that it didn't feel like a satisfying reveal. and at the end -- everything wrapped up in a way that i suppose makes sense, but it didn't feel at all like what the book was leading to. (besides peyton not being real and darwin also not being real (and being the same person pretending to be peyton) . that part made sense.)
also, i couldn't get past the way people talked in the jane anonymous chatroom.....assuming that this is set in the past couple of years, which i'm sure it is, no one is punctuating every sentence with #Truth #Confession #WhatIDidLastNight. i think millenials in 2012 probably were (though i can't confirm bc in 2012 i was not using the ocmputer for anything besides webkinz and pixie hollow) but these are teenagers in 2020 and i guarantee you they are not typing like that. i also don't understand why, if they have DM capability (to ask each other if they want to go to a private chatroom), did terra and peyton always talk in private chatrooms they had to open and link to rather than just talking in their dms? it's not like it was three people on a site that may not have group chat capabilities. but whatever.
but that's a small & nitpicky thing to complain about. mostly i just couldn't stand how absolutely none of terra's abduction made any sense whatsoever until the last 50 pages.
at least it wasn't boring! i was able to focus on this book for more than five minutes at a time without putting it down, which is a point in its favor.
frankly, until the end, i did not believe her either, and i was sure that [her abduction not being real] would be the reveal. i believed that she had been missing and maybe fallen into the well or something, but i couldn't get over how unrealistic the abduction itself was. not to sound callous, but if a stranger picks someone up off of the side of the road (or breaks into their house to grab them) they are probably going to torture/attack/kill/etc them. not just abandon them in a well. it was so so strange.
also, i couldn't get past the way people talked in the jane anonymous chatroom.....assuming that this is set in the past couple of years, which i'm sure it is, no one is punctuating every sentence with #Truth #Confession #WhatIDidLastNight. i think millenials in 2012 probably were (though i can't confirm bc in 2012 i was not using the ocmputer for anything besides webkinz and pixie hollow) but these are teenagers in 2020 and i guarantee you they are not typing like that. i also don't understand why, if they have DM capability (to ask each other if they want to go to a private chatroom), did terra and peyton always talk in private chatrooms they had to open and link to rather than just talking in their dms? it's not like it was three people on a site that may not have group chat capabilities. but whatever.
but that's a small & nitpicky thing to complain about. mostly i just couldn't stand how absolutely none of terra's abduction made any sense whatsoever until the last 50 pages.
at least it wasn't boring! i was able to focus on this book for more than five minutes at a time without putting it down, which is a point in its favor.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping
crackedspines_'s review
2.0
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!
OVERALL RATING: 2/5 stars. This book started out very good, and I enjoyed the first half. But there were several major faults that ultimately I could not ignore. There were some problematic passages that were enough to knock my rating from 4.5 to 3, but the ending was bad enough to lower my final rating to 2 stars. I really wanted to like this book but I just couldn't.
PLOT: 2/5 stars. The premise of this book was really interesting, and while the first half of the book was good plot-wise, the second half declined dramatically. The major plot twist (that Darwin12 turned out to be Terra's abductor luring her back in) was too obvious, and Terra was way too oblivious. I found most of what happened after that twist to be implausible because it just made no sense that Terra hadn't figured it out yet. There were also quite a few plot holes towards the end. It made no sense that Terra did not recognize Charley's eyes from the moment she first saw them the first time she was abducted, what with the amount of time she spent imagining them and trying to paint/draw them. I also can't understand how she did not recognize the line "You tell me your secret, and I'll tell you mine" from the Forest Girl as being based off of the game she and Charley played. While I can ignore that, she absolutely should've recognized the illustration of two people crouching behind a couch from the bus.
STRUCTURE: 3/5 stars. I enjoyed the way the narrative switched between the past, showing Terra's abduction, and the present, showing the aftermath. The chat room sections were cool, but ultimately caused too much confusion. It was unnecessary to introduce so many chat site users; it was hard to keep them straight since we didn't even find out most of their real names, and I never knew if one of them was going to turn into an important character.
SETTING: 2/5 stars. I wish there was a little more information about Hayberry Park, or even a map, since it is such an important landmark in the book and there's almost no information to help the reader develop an accurate picture of it. I also think it should've been mentioned sooner how far apart Hayberry and Terra's house are.
WRITING: 2/5 stars. This was my favorite part of the book. The author used some beautiful figurative language. However, I did not at all appreciate the instances of ableism. For the first third-ish of the book there's this pervasive narrative that it is bad to be mentally ill or disabled, and the author uses the slur "sp*z" twice. Towards the end of the book, she uses the word "handicapped" twice, which is ableist towards physically disabled people. Lastly, there is also a scene during the climax of the book that is transphobic. Unfortunately it is spoilery, so I'll put it under a tag. When Charley reveals to Terra that he was pretending to be Peyton, he tells her about voice modifiers and says something to the effect of "Males can sound like females and females can sound like men. There are even a few gender neutral options!" This is extremely transphobic.
CHARACTERS: 4/5 stars. Overall, I loved the characters in this story. They were dimensional and interesting and Terra was a very dynamic character. My only complaint is that there were some inconsistencies in Garret's character towards the end - despite his overall understanding and friendly personality, he says a few ignorant and hurtful things.
OVERALL RATING: 2/5 stars. This book started out very good, and I enjoyed the first half. But there were several major faults that ultimately I could not ignore. There were some problematic passages that were enough to knock my rating from 4.5 to 3, but the ending was bad enough to lower my final rating to 2 stars. I really wanted to like this book but I just couldn't.
PLOT: 2/5 stars. The premise of this book was really interesting, and while the first half of the book was good plot-wise, the second half declined dramatically. The major plot twist (that Darwin12 turned out to be Terra's abductor luring her back in) was too obvious, and Terra was way too oblivious. I found most of what happened after that twist to be implausible because it just made no sense that Terra hadn't figured it out yet. There were also quite a few plot holes towards the end. It made no sense that Terra did not recognize Charley's eyes from the moment she first saw them the first time she was abducted, what with the amount of time she spent imagining them and trying to paint/draw them. I also can't understand how she did not recognize the line "You tell me your secret, and I'll tell you mine" from the Forest Girl as being based off of the game she and Charley played. While I can ignore that, she absolutely should've recognized the illustration of two people crouching behind a couch from the bus.
STRUCTURE: 3/5 stars. I enjoyed the way the narrative switched between the past, showing Terra's abduction, and the present, showing the aftermath. The chat room sections were cool, but ultimately caused too much confusion. It was unnecessary to introduce so many chat site users; it was hard to keep them straight since we didn't even find out most of their real names, and I never knew if one of them was going to turn into an important character.
SETTING: 2/5 stars. I wish there was a little more information about Hayberry Park, or even a map, since it is such an important landmark in the book and there's almost no information to help the reader develop an accurate picture of it. I also think it should've been mentioned sooner how far apart Hayberry and Terra's house are.
WRITING: 2/5 stars. This was my favorite part of the book. The author used some beautiful figurative language. However, I did not at all appreciate the instances of ableism. For the first third-ish of the book there's this pervasive narrative that it is bad to be mentally ill or disabled, and the author uses the slur "sp*z" twice. Towards the end of the book, she uses the word "handicapped" twice, which is ableist towards physically disabled people. Lastly, there is also a scene during the climax of the book that is transphobic. Unfortunately it is spoilery, so I'll put it under a tag. When Charley reveals to Terra that he was pretending to be Peyton, he tells her about voice modifiers and says something to the effect of "Males can sound like females and females can sound like men. There are even a few gender neutral options!" This is extremely transphobic.
CHARACTERS: 4/5 stars. Overall, I loved the characters in this story. They were dimensional and interesting and Terra was a very dynamic character. My only complaint is that there were some inconsistencies in Garret's character towards the end - despite his overall understanding and friendly personality, he says a few ignorant and hurtful things.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement and Kidnapping
Moderate: Stalking
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