Reviews

The Broken Room by Peter Clines

Only show reviews with written explanations

shelbymarie32's review

Go to review page

3.0

3.5 A good solid read.

aceofknaves88's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

incredibrent's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Light actiony thriller romp with notes of eldritch horror. It isn't perfect, some parts are a bit tacky, but I am a sucker for a knight in shining armor tale even if that knight is an alcoholic. Bonus points, there is no cliché savior romance.

donnaehm's review

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

tacanderson's review

Go to review page

5.0

If you like the weirder aspects of Peter Cline’s stories, this one won’t disappoint. Really fun and like most of his books I had no problem visualizing the story as it unfolded.

slackerman2's review

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

3.0

spookyoh's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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

2.5

First of all, I can’t believe more people haven’t mentioned how…gross this book is. If you don’t like bugs or excessive vomiting, please don’t read it.

**This review will contain spoilers**

The Broken Room started off so strong for me. A girl escaped from a secret project with a ghost in her head? Teams up with an ex-spy who begrudgingly becomes her father figure? This may be a bit of a tired trope but I love it.

And the first 1/3 or so of the book was great! Mysterious, exciting, fast-paced. I’ve seen people complain that Natalie’s retelling of her experience at the Project and leading up to it was boring, but I still found that exciting and suspense-building.

And then the excessive vomiting started.

It was find at first. Her coughing, puking up mucus and then egg sacks. Gross, but not overly so. It was interesting. What was happening? I wanted to know more.

But there first scene where she pukes up “gallons and gallons” of mucus and bugs and literally uses her puking as a weapon? Why?? It was so ridiculous, it almost circled back around to not being gross. How am I supposed to take this seriously when its described as a waterfall of mucus coming out of her mouth? It sounded like something a 12 year old would write to be funny.

And from then on, it only got worse. The book got repetitive. Their cover is blown, they fight their way out, Natalie has an excessive puking episode, they escape. And the BUGS. Ugh. Why? I’ve read my fair share of body horror but the puking combined with the mutant bugs was just too much. It was so overly gross that I almost DNF’d at several points.

And the ending in the broken room? Wading through her own mucus-puke? How much did she puke? Why is this necessary? Like, write whatever you want, but why would anyone write *this*?

The ending itself was fine. I didn’t have any major gripes with it. I wish that Tim was explored more as a character, because then his sacrifice would have been more impactful.

I’ve really enjoyed Peter Cline’s past work, especially 14 and The Fold, but this one just didn’t do it for me.