Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Wranglestone by Darren Charlton

19 reviews

pkc's review

Go to review page

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

5.0

Sometimes you pick up a book that just tickles all of the right synapses and reading it is an unspeakable joy. This was one of those times. Don’t get me wrong - the story wasn’t particularly happy all the time and there was a sense of foreboding throughout, but the writing was excellent, the characterisation was absolutely flawless and there were enough believable twists and turns to make - let’s face it - a very well-used plot device feel fresh and new and exciting. I was such a huge fan of this book. I can’t wait to read the second book. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

markwillnevercry's review

Go to review page

2.0

Not gonna lie, it felt a bit all over the place. In the beginning I was like, "Ah, it is going to be about Peter learning to kill the restless one and thinking about that process, as a deeply emotional person he is", but nah, that was not the problem. I have a feeling, that there were many ideas, that the writer wanted to involve in the story, but either couldn't think through them well enough or simply didn't have enough space in the book. The general strokes of the story are really nice, but there were some places that made it questionable. The short chapters are nice, but I did not understand most of the times why one chapter would end and the other begin, sometimes in the middle of the scene even. It just felt a bit strange. Overall, it was an enjoyable reading experience, I just wish it was better. 

Reading notes:

Why did he throw away the alarm? Shouldn't he keep carrying it to attract the dead?

And the community is just okay with Bud basically killing someone, by making them a bait and not fully informing them?

Now Peter is going to take over Mr Schmidt's job? Where is this story going?

Bro, the sex scene, bring out the fans, bois, it be steamin hot. 

I have a feeling, that the writer of this book is not too fond of capitalism, seeing how Cooper reacts to the idea of wanting to be born before shit hit the fan. (this is never mentioned again, they never again think about being born at some other time)

Did we really need the scene where they kill Essie? Like, there was a bunch of blood already spilled and it does not really make sense to kill her in such a flashy way. 

So we just leave the rest of people and have just Peter, Cooper, Tom and Becky????

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

axel_p's review

Go to review page

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

3.0

The beginning kinda sucked, but after that it was amazing.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

lilifane's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

3.0

This was purely a cover buy, which I'm still loving. I wasn't expecting this to be a great book... and it wasn't. The writing is... bad. Really bad. I would describe it as inconsistent and clumsy, same applies for the characters. The plot is all over the place. But I kind of liked it? There were some mysteries and twists I was interested it. And although I liked the characters, I didn't love them. Still, I was rooting for them. Also, the setting and atmosphere are really cool. I liked the national park sceneries, the community on small islands on a lake surrounded by mountains. 
Probably wouldn't recommend it, but I don't regret buying it. It's really pretty. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

numerous_bees's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

2.0

I try to go easier when reviewing YA books - I'm not the target audience - so I'm not going pick on the themes for being heavy handed or the writing for being clumy or the characters for being and acting like teenagers. Those aren't faults but a quirk of genre, but this novel didn't work for me structurally. 

The first issue I ran into was that the author uses a lot of similes in an attempt to create a voice for the character and I found them be distracting and occasionally inappropriate for the situation.

The second thing - the one that really turned me off - is the sudden slavery/sexual assault plot point that shows up at about the 75% mark, lingers for a couple of chapters, and is dropped and barely brought up again. The sex abuse in particular is completely out of left-field, totally uncalled for, and adds nothing. I'm of the opinion that something that serious needs to justify it's presence in a story, and this didn't. 

The racism metaphor that followed the slavery plot point only served to highlight the lack of racial diversity in the cast. 

Finally, the climax is emotionally hobbled by how little we see of Peter and Cooper's community - the main(?) villain gets an emotional monologue where they try to justify their decisions, but they'vebarely featured in the story to this point and, despite Peter waxing poetic about how many happy memories they had together, we didn't see those events and Peter hadn't thought about them until that point, and I simply didn't care about this character or their motivations. 

It's a shame, because I think that the concept of a queer romance novel set against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse has a lot of potential, but this book isn't really that. It starts off as a romance but ends as a survival adventure, and I don't think it did a good job of transitioning between the two genres. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

jjjreads's review

Go to review page

dark emotional inspiring fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

spttsn's review

Go to review page

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

2.75

Difficult book to judge for me, it had a lot of promise.

I liked the premise and I read through it in a few hours, but the execution left a little to be desired. The beginning was confusingly written, the plot in the middle was interesting, and the end was messy and disappointing.

Overall - it kept me interested enough in where the plot was going to not put down, but not invested enough to pickup the second book despite the many questions the ending leaves. 

The map was cool though.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

alice_clawford's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

rebeccalaur's review

Go to review page

emotional funny lighthearted mysterious sad tense 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

Another favourite for me! Reminded me in places of The Song of Achilles, e.g. the focus on how Cooper says Peter's name. Lovely read!

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

erzywerzy's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

😭I loved it so much, the plot was so good and the characters aahhhhhh. I cried, I laughed and shouted at my book. I LOVE PETER AND COOPER. I couldn't put it down. <3

Expand filter menu Content Warnings