Reviews

Never Name the Dead by D.M. Rowell

minchowski's review

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informative mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

danniphantomreads's review

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4.0

Wow! This book kept me on the edge of my seat! I LOVE me a good murder mystery and this was AMAZING!! I highly recommend to all lovers of Murder Mystery, Culture and lovers of having your mind blown!! What a great read!! Can’t wait for the rest of the murder mysteries to come!

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

fivecatsinacoat's review against another edition

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Writing was poor. 

kimham_bookstagram's review against another edition

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3.0

I received this book, Never Name the Dead by D.M. Rowell, as part of a gifted book box from Once Upon a Book Club. It included gifts to be opened as you reached pages in the book. The box was lovely and I wish I had a better endorsement of the book, but this one fell flat for me. I did enjoy learning more about the Kiowa culture, and I liked the strong, independent and proud FMC, but the writing was repetitive and the pacing was uneven. I’m a big fan of mysteries, but this one didn’t capture my attention, and the ending was bland. 

henrygravesprince's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I really enjoyed this book. The writing definitely could have been strengthened with another run through of line-editing for redundancies (I feel like I’ve heard the words “no-no room” more times than I ever needed to in the span of a week), but the story was interesting and captivating, and the author did a good job at putting gratification off to keep the reader engaged. I also really liked the audiobook narrator, but I felt bad for her too: there’s a lot of points where it sounds like she needs to take a break and get some water. On top of that, the audio engineering could use some work: pauses between dialogue and for punctuation were rushed and you could tell that they didn’t have the narrator re-record parts where necessary, which isn’t the narrator’s fault, but was jarring, especially when they kept in her repeating lines and slipping up on character names. Those are normal, natural mistakes for a narrator to make, but they shouldn’t be making it into a final audiobook.

The ending sounds like the author intends to write a sequel, and if that’s the case, I’m looking forward to it.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kleonard's review

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1.0

This was atrociously written, relying on some serious willing suspension of disbelief, cardboard characters, and the idea of the "magic" Native American. The dialogue was unrealistic, the plotting dull, and far too much of the story told, rather than unfolded through action, for readers.

katbooklover5521's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging informative mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

ace_of_hats's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

trippalli's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Wonderful book about protecting Native American culture, The importance of story time and of cultural artifacts and place people. How so appreciated how the book talks about the really severe problems with fracking and the issues at the industry as well as the issues with native American artifacts being taken and sold and land and water being tapped illegally or fracking rather than being left drinking water

heather0927's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0