Reviews - Head Like a Hole

416 reviews for:

Head Like a Hole

Andrew Van Wey

3.75 AVERAGE

jaceyjustread's review

3.75

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

hannahblikestoread's review

3.5

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

sketchwaffles's review

3.0

dark slow-paced

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

bibliomich's review against another edition

3.5

dark tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Listening to the audiobook for Head Like a Hole was *quite* the experience. This book felt like Stranger Things meets Final Destination with a hint of M. Night Shyamalan thrown in at the end. I absolutely flew through the book and then found myself stymied by the last 10%-15%, which I had to rewind and listen to multiple times to truly wrap my head around.

What I enjoyed:
- The exposition was fantastic. It was creepy and gory in all the right ways, and I was excited to see the "true crime podcaster investigating a story" device.
- I liked the nostalgic cult classic 90s/00s horror vibes, particularly throughout the first 2/3 of the book.
- This was a quick read, and I found that I could get lost in the book for long stretches of time without getting bored or distracted.
- Even though there were many characters and different timelines, I found it relatively easy to keep track of them all.
- The narrator, Tom Jordan, did an excellent job.

What didn't quite work for me:
- While several aspects of the book were gory and/or graphic, I didn't find the book to be particularly scary. I would have loved to see Van Wey introduce more elements of psychological horror into the book, as I think this could have really taken the book to the next level.
- The ending was both predictable and also super confusing. Too much happened right at the end, and a lot of it wasn't particularly clear. While I think this was probably intentional in a you-can-interpret-this-however-you-want sort of way, I mostly found it to be a disappointing resolution.
- The book suffered from not having a clear narrator. It was initially framed as though the protagonist were telling the story to the interviewer, but the narration was actually third-person omniscient and jumped around between multiple different characters. At the end you're left wondering if the narrator was a reliable narrator, but that doesn't really make sense because the story was being told *about* the characters, rather than truly from the point of view of the characters.

I would still consider reading more Andrew Van Wey, especially another book narrated by Tom Jordan.

Content Warnings

curiously_cate_77's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

vmartin's review against another edition

2.0

I’m honestly not sure what exactly I read ? Im very confused still on what happened… I struggled for the first 75% of the book but the last 25% were really good!