Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - The Crossing Places

Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths

10 reviews

sophiepearson's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

Enjoyed this as an easy listen. Although I did zone out a few times, whoops. I liked most of the characters, the mystery, and also enjoyed that it was set in Norfolk near where I grew up. What I didn’t like was the death of a pet (found that really upsetting), and some of the commentary on women, especially the repeated fat phobia - quite an outdated narrative. That being said, I will probably listen to more in the series!

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lillianfc's review against another edition

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mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

A fast paced and interesting anthropological crime novel — yet outdated in its consistent fatphobia and anti-childless women stances

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ceallaighsbooks's review

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dark fast-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

TITLE—The Crossing Places

AUTHOR—Elly Griffiths

PUBLISHED—2009

PUBLISHER—Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

GENRE—mystery crime thriller

SETTING—Norfolk, England

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—archaeology, New Age stuff, ancient henge sites, ley lines, birding, salt marsh, boundaries & liminal places, human sacrifice & ritual burials, bog bodies, horrible human relationship dynamics, cats, university jobs, child abduction & murder, modern English society & culture (though a bit dated even for 2009 imo…)

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️

CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️

STORY/PLOT—⭐️

PHILOSOPHY—🚩🚩🚩

My thoughts:

Oh gods this book was a mess. Though I’m not too familiar with the genre (crime/mystery/thriller), I thought the plot seemed way too cliché and predictable (I’m terrible at guessing whodunnits and this one I guessed *immediately*), the characters’ actions made zero sense to the point that it was disorienting, and the underlying philosophy was awful.

—👇🏻HERE BE SPOILERS👇🏻—

This book presented New Agers as mad kooks, and born again Christians as fanatical (but at least nOt As BaD as New Agers 😬). The (“fat”, single-with-two-cats, living-in-an-isolated-cottage) MC—who referred to her body at one point as “a waste” because she had never had children—was “redeemed” at the end by becoming pregnant by the married man she slept with halfway through the book. 🥴 Her odd obsession with her toxic, abusive, cheating mentor was extremely lazily justified at the end because pEoPlE aRe CoMpLiCaTeD and nO bOdY iS pErFeCt even though the dude literally died while chasing her out into the marsh during a storm and the MC was convinced he was the killer at one point. One of the characters got back together with his wife even though he was neither happy nor in love with her and it was *uncritically* presented as the right thing to do. And the person who ended up being the killer was neurodivergent and basically presented as having done what he did due to mental instability. Yeah. This book was a WHOLE mess.

I read this book as part of #ArchaeoBookclub and the archaeology in the book was, though somewhat accurately depicted (i.e. the author clearly did her research), disappointingly applied fixating on death rituals (which is an over-sensationalized part of archaeological scholarship) and, even worse, human sacrifice (a highly controversial and debatable interpretation of some ancient burials). It just came off as very lazy and many times the things the author did get wrong (how artifacts were often incorrectly excavated & recorded, the fact that the use of honeysuckle rope in one of the modern burials wasn’t an immediate indicator of who the killer was, and the archaeologist musing about the monetary value of one of the artifacts as her first thought upon uncovering it) too often took me out of the story.

—🛑END OF SPOILERS🛑—

I would not recommend this book.

Final note: Still glad I read it though (and that I was able to get it from the library) just so I know what’s out there. 👀 And I also want to emphasize that I firmly believe that just because a book is a piece of “genre fiction” or is meant as “just” escapism and entertainment, that doesn’t mean that it’s ok to uncritically feature highly problematic ideas and beliefs.

⭐️

(This proves at least that I don’t only give books four and five star ratings. 😆 Fwiw I will only really post one or two star reviews if I feel like the book was problematic on some level and needs to be addressed.)

Season: Winter

CW // fatphobia, animal death (cat), child abduction & murder, infidelity, misogyny, toxic relationships, ableism (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—

LAST RITUALS by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir—this was another book from this genre that I read because of its connections to archaeology and certain historical subjects that I’m interested in and that was similarly disappointing in its handling of those topics, though maybe not as much as Griffiths’ book.

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zelephante's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

3.75

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davinmotion's review

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adventurous dark lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Read this for book club and I think I found a new series to follow! While I have a few questions or grievances, I overall adored this read and I already can’t wait to read the next one. The mystery is morbid without being overly gruesome but it still shakes you, which in my opinion, is one of the best sorts of fictional mysteries to read. Highly recommend if you’re into cozy mysteries with a touch of archaeology.

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zosiablue's review

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funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Ahh what a satisfying cozy mystery. Just what I needed. Light murder/kidnapping, heavy archeological bent, a little romance but not enough to annoy, and a spooky-ass saltmarsh. I'm so glad there's like 15 more books in this series. Though not without fault - there was some unsavory animal violence & anti-fat bias (though only the main character referring to herself). But I'm ready to read 15 more stories about archaeologist Ruth Galloway and her cats.

Content Warnings

fossilreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.25

Almost gave up in the beginning with all of Ruth's (and everyone else's) internalized fatphobia, not sure if it was 100% worth it. I'm glad I finished the book, loved the mystery of it! Some of the twists were really surprising and some of them I was happy to have guessed in advance.

I will be continuing the series, hoping to see Ruth grow out of judging everyone's weight.

The theme of children being kidnapped and killed can be very difficult to handle, I'm very glad of the families whose children dissapeared had a connection and supported each other in something very traumatizing. Kind of hated all the infedility, I wish so many of them weren't out there cheating on their partners and knowingly having relationships with married people.

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professorbadger's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

Often the books that I enjoy most are those with a strong sense of place, the kind that transport you while you’re reading and leave you with a slightly unsettled feeling of “traveling back home” once you’re done. This book was set in the salt marshes near Norfolk (the English one, not the VA one) and gave me that feeling of being there in person in the marsh.

Many of the bad reviews here seem to be based on certain elements of the story rather than the writing itself — eg, there was a weird through line of talking about the main character’s weight (I assume the author wanted more weight diversity in novels but didn’t do a great job of carrying that out) and also several instances of infidelity. Writing-wise, the pacing and plot and character seemed well done. The main character had a strong presence, enough that I would like to read more in her series and see what she gets up to next. My library has 20 other e-books by the same author and most have wait times, so I’m hoping that’s a sign that it’s all uphill from here. So, in short, it wasn’t a perfect book but enjoyable enough, and I’m looking forward to checking out more in the series.

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foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

hazelgirl21's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

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