Reviews

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

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brittanythackray's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

isabellemolly's review against another edition

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mysterious tense fast-paced

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

1.75

Book started off really interesting, but slowly devolved into a bizarre string of bigotry and transphobia. Super disappointed to see this being praised across platforms with such blatant dogwhistles

virginiafromtx's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

4.25

atran1103's review against another edition

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3.0

Pretty average/middle of the road for me. I loved the synopsis and the start of it; once things started falling into place, I kind of checked out.

nickitaylor915's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

Summary: Mallory Quinn is a college-aged student that is fresh out of rehab. She takes a job babysitting for the affluent couple (Ted and Caroline Maxwell). She bonds with their five-year-old son, named Teddy. He creates a plethora of drawings that eventually become more detailed and disturbing. Mallory recognizes that there are paranormal forces behind Teddy’s drawings. Mallory must decipher the images to solve a crime that happened years ago.

“Hidden Pictures" by Jason Rekulak is a captivating mystery novel that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It's filled with secrets, surprises, and unexpected twists. You won't be able to put it down! 📚🔍

alykat_reads's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

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

2.75

Alright, so this was a quick, easy read. At the beginning I thought for sure the horror/paranormal scary factor could be there, but this really fell flat in that aspect. I want a horror book to make me afraid to sleep with the lights off. This did not do that. Still decent enough to be entertaining though, and I was fairly invested in figuring out what was going on.

Now, I get Mallory fried her brains with heroin and pills or whatever, but man this girl was really dumb, but she’s miraculously the only one in the end who puts all the pieces together 🤔 sus.

Spoiler

After literally getting baby powder injected into her veins in an attempt to kill her (I’m not even going to start on how ridiculous that is) PLUS getting a half hour monologue outlining all the killing Caroline did, she still questions Ted on why he’s scared of his wife. But yeah, that’s obviously the one who figured out the truth behind Teddy 👌🏼 sure, Jan.
I’ll let the not realizing Teddy was transgender for 7 weeks thing slide, because if Teddy was around 5 and not wearing diapers, there’s really no reason an adult would need to see a child’s genitalia. Seems odd that Mallory would have never gone swimming with him during that 7 weeks since there was a pool in the backyard but otherwise, there’s no reason she would have seen Teddy without clothes on.
Some of the phrasing surrounding the transgender topic did bother me a little, just felt a little icky to me. Some of the things Mitzi said too were a little off base.

This did have a YA feel, and I don’t think that was the intention of the author at all, but idk.