Scan barcode
andyc_elsby232's review against another edition
3.0
Brief with enough moments of purely "wow" writing to make this a worthy couple of afternoons for people wondering just wtf Thomas Harris has been doing lately (answer: watching 'Narcos' and reading Ernest Hemingway). I've seen a lot of user reviews on here calling this book atrocious and boring. I can't agree with the former, but I totally understand the latter. There's definitely some parts of this that made my eyes say "I know we slept 8 hours last night, but how about 8 more right now?" But, from a writing standpoint, I kinda admire what those moments were going for, because they're in keeping with Harris' lifelong habit of giving everything-that-breathes a backstory. If it has a beating heart, it gets a lumpy bit of characterization: from the henchman who will die in a few pages to the alligator who ate that henchman.
I've seen some users call this overcommitment to fleshing out the story (which is pretty simple at its core) confusing, and I'm not trying to flex on them by saying I didn't find it confusing (because there is something very jerky about the way Harris plays with perspective), but re-reading certain scenes, I appreciated what he was trying for. That said, these very purposefully written moments create unintentional spaces for empty-subplot-scrutiny. Like, who tf ultimately cares about Iliana, or Robles' amnesiac wife? Instead of having anything meaningful to do with the story, they're just these empty seeming motivators who, by the time you reach the end of the book, make you angrily reflect on just how useless the pages spent on them were.
The titular character's backstory ends up being far more interesting than what she's doing in the present moment. Harris uses her brutal and sad past life to give her an air of hyper-vigilance and warrior-weariness, and this is initially awesome af, because when you meet the villains you know for a fact they've underestimated her. But in the climax of the book, you realize they haven't. Cari acts really f'n stupid in the last twenty pages of this book for no other reason than to give us an action sequence you can find in PG-13 horror movies that won't let their protagonists suffer the bleak fates their poorly written reflexes demand.
The length of this book makes these annoyances trivial, and I'm not a book critic so I don't go out of my way to punish books I willfully read (and in this case anticipated, being a very big fan of the Hannibal Lecter character). The most memorable part about it is the main villain, Hans Peter, who on paper may seem like a downgrade from Lecter, but once explored, his repulsiveness was actually enough to make me nauseous. Harris, in one of his very few interviews, repeatedly explained that he doesn't make any of this sadistic shit up (by all accounts he's a sweet-hearted fellow who loves animals and spent years of evenings talking to his mama); that what we see is what we get in actuality. Harris got his start in the writing world covering real-world crime, and in these crimes (after the admittedly way-too-extravagant Black Sunday) he found inspiration for characters like Lecter, Buffalo Bill, Mason Verger, and now this sick f**k Hans, who I'd argue ranks with them. His cruelty isn't throwaway over-the-top like you'll find in a lot of page-turner crime (numbing America's Most Wanted plagiarism), but dark-web scary. What has always succeeded about Harris' horror is that he derives creative inspiration from people who make a routine of their cruelty. They aren't boogeymen, but people who walk up and down the street and buy icecream cones and then go home and order human beings to be their slaves and, eventually, their meals. Evil not for the sake of evil, but evil as habit; evil as a lifestyle. Evil as sexual gratification and, I shit you not, financially upper-tier delicacy. Hans Peter isn't scary in ways you can ultimately dismiss as fictional; he's scary because folks like him exist and perpetuate the worst, most nightmarish human tendencies you could possibly read about. This is why it's disappointing when it seems like Cari will be a formidable adversary to his complex, far-reaching insidiousness, only for their good vs. evil duel (SPOILER...........................................) to be a vanilla chase scene that gives our protagonist a victory that should feel, after all the things we've read Hans do to people in gruesome detail, morally cleansing but is instead as quick-and-empty as watching a certain prince from a certain book series choke on wine.
It's nice to see Harris back, and I hope we hear more from him soon, I just hope he's preparing something more memorable than this for next time.
I've seen some users call this overcommitment to fleshing out the story (which is pretty simple at its core) confusing, and I'm not trying to flex on them by saying I didn't find it confusing (because there is something very jerky about the way Harris plays with perspective), but re-reading certain scenes, I appreciated what he was trying for. That said, these very purposefully written moments create unintentional spaces for empty-subplot-scrutiny. Like, who tf ultimately cares about Iliana, or Robles' amnesiac wife? Instead of having anything meaningful to do with the story, they're just these empty seeming motivators who, by the time you reach the end of the book, make you angrily reflect on just how useless the pages spent on them were.
The titular character's backstory ends up being far more interesting than what she's doing in the present moment. Harris uses her brutal and sad past life to give her an air of hyper-vigilance and warrior-weariness, and this is initially awesome af, because when you meet the villains you know for a fact they've underestimated her. But in the climax of the book, you realize they haven't. Cari acts really f'n stupid in the last twenty pages of this book for no other reason than to give us an action sequence you can find in PG-13 horror movies that won't let their protagonists suffer the bleak fates their poorly written reflexes demand.
The length of this book makes these annoyances trivial, and I'm not a book critic so I don't go out of my way to punish books I willfully read (and in this case anticipated, being a very big fan of the Hannibal Lecter character). The most memorable part about it is the main villain, Hans Peter, who on paper may seem like a downgrade from Lecter, but once explored, his repulsiveness was actually enough to make me nauseous. Harris, in one of his very few interviews, repeatedly explained that he doesn't make any of this sadistic shit up (by all accounts he's a sweet-hearted fellow who loves animals and spent years of evenings talking to his mama); that what we see is what we get in actuality. Harris got his start in the writing world covering real-world crime, and in these crimes (after the admittedly way-too-extravagant Black Sunday) he found inspiration for characters like Lecter, Buffalo Bill, Mason Verger, and now this sick f**k Hans, who I'd argue ranks with them. His cruelty isn't throwaway over-the-top like you'll find in a lot of page-turner crime (numbing America's Most Wanted plagiarism), but dark-web scary. What has always succeeded about Harris' horror is that he derives creative inspiration from people who make a routine of their cruelty. They aren't boogeymen, but people who walk up and down the street and buy icecream cones and then go home and order human beings to be their slaves and, eventually, their meals. Evil not for the sake of evil, but evil as habit; evil as a lifestyle. Evil as sexual gratification and, I shit you not, financially upper-tier delicacy. Hans Peter isn't scary in ways you can ultimately dismiss as fictional; he's scary because folks like him exist and perpetuate the worst, most nightmarish human tendencies you could possibly read about. This is why it's disappointing when it seems like Cari will be a formidable adversary to his complex, far-reaching insidiousness, only for their good vs. evil duel (SPOILER...........................................) to be a vanilla chase scene that gives our protagonist a victory that should feel, after all the things we've read Hans do to people in gruesome detail, morally cleansing but is instead as quick-and-empty as watching a certain prince from a certain book series choke on wine.
It's nice to see Harris back, and I hope we hear more from him soon, I just hope he's preparing something more memorable than this for next time.
liamkeith's review against another edition
adventurous
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
2.0
picklepet's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
To be blunt - all of the grossness of the Hannibal series without any of the charismatic personalities to make it interesting. I appreciate the thought of branching out to a POC heroine. The most stand out quality of this book in my memory shall be the frequent asides of exposition about animals that I did not feel accomplish what they were meant to.
galaplanas's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
xcunhax's review against another edition
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.25
trrcilke's review against another edition
1.0
Cari Mora is tedious. The characters aren’t compelling, the plot isn’t interesting, and the writing is uncharacteristically weak. Fans of Thomas Harris’ other novels are likely to be extremely disappointed in this work.
catseye6773's review against another edition
3.0
It was okay a few good lines. But would not recommend.
erincataldi's review against another edition
3.0
I had higher hopes for this. I've only been waiting half a lifetime to read something new by Thomas Harris. His Hannibal Lector trilogy is on of my all time favorite book series and as a kid I read it REPEATEDLY. His beautiful prose, fiendish villains, and strong female protagonists are still present, but the story-line and plot left a little to be desired. Cari Mora is about a young woman who fled violence in her own country only to fall back into it in the US. Cari is the caretaker for the infamous Escobar house in Miami; she's used to working with film crews and others who want to rent the space, but when a group of seedy looking men rent the house out, she quickly ascertains that they have something sinister in mind. They are looking for hidden gold, rumored to be hidden somewhere beneath the house, and they will stop at nothing to obtain it. Cari must resort to the cunning, shrewdness and survival instincts she thought she had left behind to keep from falling prey to these evil men.
mms73's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
aziraphales's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
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? No
4.0
i'm really looking forward to reading this one again <3 put it off for years in the fear that it wouldn't live up to my thomas harris expectations, and i understand why, but i'm glad i finally did read it! less impactful than the others i've read, for sure, but still an excellent thriller.