Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.34 AVERAGE
3.34 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-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:
No
This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer is a horror novel about four people, led by Clay, a geologist, and his friend Dylan who is an Instagram famous rock climber, as they trek into the Kentucky wilderness to discover a mysterious new rock for climbing. The structure is interesting as you find out from the start that three bodies were found and that Dylan is still missing and then it flashes back to them going into the woods as you wonder what could have happened to them there. The first half of this novel moves at a fast pace, it slows down a bit around two-thirds of the way through, before picking up again for the final act. This is a very strong debut novel. It is well written and compelling throughout (even with a little bit of a slow down around the middle) and I strongly recommend this to anyone who loves survival horror, especially. Jenny Kiefer is an author to keep a lookout for in the future.
Thank you to Quirk and NetGalley for the electronic ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to Quirk and NetGalley for the electronic ARC in exchange for an honest review.
| BOOK REVIEW |
Title: This Wretched Valley
Author: Jenny Kiefer
Format:
Title: This Wretched Valley
Author: Jenny Kiefer
Format:
Extremely creepy debut! Kiefer did an incredible job at building the horror at a slow but steady and dreadful pace. The prologue immediately hooked me and I needed to know how the friends ended up the way they did. It is not an extremely derivative story in general (creepy wilderness tale), but it doesn't necessarily have to be. As someone who goes camping at least once a year, there were things in this novel that terrified me to my core and are things I will definitely be thinking about the next time I go camping. The valley, wilderness setting is a shining star in this one and the writing was super crisp and clean, especially for a debut. This would be a fun read for any season and is a super quick one to breeze through. It would be super atmospheric to read in the forest/ woods!
I'm ultimately feeling super mixed about this book, because on one hand, I really did enjoy it! And on the other, there were aspects of it that I just kinda hated. So, let's start with the good. The first chapter, for example, was spectacular. I loved that we started the book with this mysterious discovery that set up a very Dyatlov Pass-y premise. The writing itself was also not bad. The descriptions of nature and gore and such were gross and awesome. I also enjoyed the nature-coming-alive aspect of it.
Now the story itself is where I started to have problems. It just didn't f l o w like I wanted it to. I really think I would have enjoyed this more if had more of an Annihilation spin - the hiking crew goes missing and then the story is about the investigative team looking for and finding them and the mysteries of the wilderness. The story we got was just kind of boring, really. The characters were meh... I felt pretty indifferent about all of them. I wasn't encouraged to like them via dialogue because it was just all very contrived and lacking in originality. I like using the F-word just as much as the next person, but the amount of unnecessary "fuck, fuck, fuck" in this book started grating on me. It just didn't feel real. All that said, I did still enjoy reading this. I liked the overall vibe of it, which was very The Ruins and Yellowjackets (without the cannibalism or compelling characters).
2.5/5 rounded up
Now the story itself is where I started to have problems. It just didn't f l o w like I wanted it to. I really think I would have enjoyed this more if had more of an Annihilation spin - the hiking crew goes missing and then the story is about the investigative team looking for and finding them and the mysteries of the wilderness. The story we got was just kind of boring, really. The characters were meh... I felt pretty indifferent about all of them. I wasn't encouraged to like them via dialogue because it was just all very contrived and lacking in originality. I like using the F-word just as much as the next person, but the amount of unnecessary "fuck, fuck, fuck" in this book started grating on me. It just didn't feel real. All that said, I did still enjoy reading this. I liked the overall vibe of it, which was very The Ruins and Yellowjackets (without the cannibalism or compelling characters).
2.5/5 rounded up
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
medium-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