Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - Pines

Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Pines by Blake Crouch

12 reviews

brittneyn125's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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fkshg8465's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Crouch is one of my favorite writers. Have loved every book I’ve read by him. This is the first one that scared me to the deepest parts of my brain on multiple levels. When it was made for TV, I was too scared to watch it, not knowing it was based on one of his books. Will certainly watch it now. And will immediately be reading book two!

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mlthomas234's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious tense 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? No

4.0

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markguitar's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-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

3.0

Very good book and I hope to get the sequel. Crouch is an excellent writer. At first, I thought I wouldn't bother going to the second book. Fair warning...lots of very graphic violence, gore, torture. If you don't have a stomach for that, I'd avoid it. That almost made me want to stop. However, the book leads to a payoff in the end...it does resolve, but it also makes me curious about what's coming next. Not as good as Crouch's Incursion--which is outstanding--but still a good read.

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__codex's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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bunky_jones's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? N/A

3.75

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vexatiousbird's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense 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? No

2.0

The good: It’s exciting. I was really curious to see where it all led. It’s fast paced and has plenty of twists. The concept was interesting.

The bad: There is not a single interesting character to be found here - all flat plot devices with no depth. The protagonist is not likable but he’s not an antihero, he’s just entitled and oblivious, eg., getting furious at the front desk for not giving him a hotel room when he has no way to pay for it. There are a lot of cheap tricks to keep the excitement going, and a lot of it doesn’t even make sense in the broader plot. There is some excessive violence which seems unnecessary/nonsensical when we ultimately see the full picture. Honestly a lot of things make less sense after the big reveal, not more sense.

The “good guys” can’t think of any way to prevent people from leaving town and force them to buy into paradise other than to enlist the entire town to catch them and literally torture them to death in a macabre carnival atmosphere so other people are too scared to try? When their ultimate goal is preserving life? What?

I dropped another of this author’s books partway through, and I thought it was just that specific plot and those characters, but it’s clear now that the problem is the author. I won’t be reading anything more by him, and now that the big mystery in this book is solved, I have no interest in continuing the series either.

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