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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
My favorite Clay McLeod Chapman book.
This one I finished in a single night. Intense, emotional, dark, disturbing... it pulls you down into the horrific depths of grief and addiction. Beautifully written.
Wanna get haunted?
This one I finished in a single night. Intense, emotional, dark, disturbing... it pulls you down into the horrific depths of grief and addiction. Beautifully written.
Wanna get haunted?
This book was significantly darker than I thought it was going to be. I feel somewhat disappointed because I think this could have been a really good novel, but it just got to be too much. At the end of the book, the narrator is still addicted to what she was addicted to at the beginning, fuckboy d.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I feel like this is Clay McLeod Chapman’s strongest contender. The body horror is disgustingly exquisite, the story doesn’t overstay its welcome and the end was wryly satisfying.
I feel a bit bad only giving this two stars, because there's a lot about it that's very good. But my overall experience with it was generally unenjoyable. Part of this is not the book's fault: I listened to it and the narrator made the male characters talk with a kind of bro-vado that didn't suit the characters and made me dislike them. My experience also suffered from comparison. I had very recently read an absolute masterpiece of ghost fiction in Tananarive Due's "The Reformatory" and as unfair as it may be, it colored my opinion of this book, which made a flailing effort to make a similar point about the real ghosts being the crimes of America's racist history.
My main criticisms, however, ARE the book's very own fault. Everything is spelled out repeatedly rather than demonstrated, which I always find condescending of the author. It was very tedious to hear the main character go on and on about her obsessions and revelations when the action should have spelled them out instead. The book also failed to follow its own internal logic several times - the "rules" of the drug and the spirits changed willy-nilly throughout. One interesting character just disappeared and wound up serving no purpose at all. The book desperately needed some subplots to beef it up instead of just repeating Erin's hand-wringing.
The idea of a drug that lets you see ghosts is a killer one, and the visuals of the hauntings were pleasingly grotesque (I love you, Lonny, you were my favorite character). The sense of wasted potential makes it even more of a bummer to rate it so low.
My main criticisms, however, ARE the book's very own fault. Everything is spelled out repeatedly rather than demonstrated, which I always find condescending of the author. It was very tedious to hear the main character go on and on about her obsessions and revelations when the action should have spelled them out instead. The book also failed to follow its own internal logic several times - the "rules" of the drug and the spirits changed willy-nilly throughout. One interesting character just disappeared and wound up serving no purpose at all. The book desperately needed some subplots to beef it up instead of just repeating Erin's hand-wringing.
The idea of a drug that lets you see ghosts is a killer one, and the visuals of the hauntings were pleasingly grotesque (I love you, Lonny, you were my favorite character). The sense of wasted potential makes it even more of a bummer to rate it so low.
getting haunted.
liberal child of extremely conservative parents.
toxic exes.
incredibly creepy atmosphere.
building suspense.
slow motion car crashes (metaphorically speaking).
this book has it all!
an objective 5 because this was stellar in its execution, but a subjective 4 because honestlyfuck all these characters, but mainly Tobias (narcissistic dickhead) and Erin (exhausting protagonist) and her parents (oh especially fuck her parents) and Silas (black hole of a human being) and only like, partially Amara, but RIP to her cause she didn't deserve her fate just for being a good friend in the end .
liberal child of extremely conservative parents.
toxic exes.
incredibly creepy atmosphere.
building suspense.
slow motion car crashes (metaphorically speaking).
this book has it all!
an objective 5 because this was stellar in its execution, but a subjective 4 because honestly
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I hated this book. I should have known it would be bad - it’s a man writing a woman main-character.