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aintbraque's review
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
3.0
reading this you can tell the author thinks he is smarter than anyone who would read this. sad because it's an interesting concept but spirals out of control towards the end as the main character has a drug fueled nervous breakdown where he hallucinates (? unclear but not enough is brought to the reader to say otherwise) the end of the world + the people he fucked over
okevamae's review
4.0
The narrator of Dare to Know is a down-on-his-luck salesman with an intriguing product to sell: he can mathematically predict the exact date and time of your death. The algorithm has never once been wrong – the method is foolproof. His competitors are less accurate, but cheaper, and can also predict the “how” of your death - and this innovation in the field is putting him out of business. In a desperate moment, he does the one thing people in his line of work are never supposed to do – he runs the numbers to find the moment of his own death. And what he finds is impossible: according to the math, he died twenty-three minutes ago.
I was expecting something a little more intrigue-y or action-y from this. The publisher’s blurb calls it an “adrenaline-fueled thriller,” but after reading the novel, I have to wonder whether they and I read the same book. Instead, this book follows along as the narrator’s life completely unravels - and his sanity with it, in a weird, trippy fashion that reminds me of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Most of the book is spent either in flashback, as we learn what brought the narrator to this point, or in weird hallucinatory insanity, the reason for which makes much more sense once you get to the end, which has a twist that was somehow both surprising and obvious.
I enjoyed this book, but I’m giving it 4 stars instead of 5 just because so much of the trippy stuff was hard to follow and didn’t keep my attention well. I kept wanting to skip ahead to a scene that made sense.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Tw: drug use, alcoholism, miscarriage
I was expecting something a little more intrigue-y or action-y from this. The publisher’s blurb calls it an “adrenaline-fueled thriller,” but after reading the novel, I have to wonder whether they and I read the same book. Instead, this book follows along as the narrator’s life completely unravels - and his sanity with it, in a weird, trippy fashion that reminds me of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Most of the book is spent either in flashback, as we learn what brought the narrator to this point, or in weird hallucinatory insanity, the reason for which makes much more sense once you get to the end, which has a twist that was somehow both surprising and obvious.
I enjoyed this book, but I’m giving it 4 stars instead of 5 just because so much of the trippy stuff was hard to follow and didn’t keep my attention well. I kept wanting to skip ahead to a scene that made sense.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Tw: drug use, alcoholism, miscarriage
baby_casserole's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
You know when someone tells you a really choice piece of gossip and you are hanging on to every word of the story as they are slowly working up to tell you the really good bit. The part that will make you immediately want to tell everyone you know. And then they drop the bomb and you have no idea who they are talking about. While the gossip is juicy and there's a satsifaction in hearing it, ultimately it means nothing to you. That's sort of how this felt. The story and it's build to some conclusion drew me in. But was that conclusion profound or insipid? I don't know. In the end the whole thing felt like a nihilistic ode the mediocrity of life.
frogfixture's review
Only after I finished reading this did I realized this was published by Quirk Books. I hate it like something I can't look away from, the way I weirdly read Jonathan Strange and Mr Morrell three times. I don't know why. I might hate-read this again at some point too, to pull out the existential quotes I had to highlight. I can't give this a single number and I can't reduce the experience of reading it down to a single dimension except one: I finished it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Toxic friendship, Animal death, Gore, Death, and Grief
elllljayyyy's review
adventurous
challenging
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
4.5
seereeves's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
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? Yes
2.0
salesia16's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
asherlock99's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
yak_attak's review against another edition
3.5
Compulsively readable, but annoyingly smug, Kennedy's Dare to Know is both captivating and irritating in equal measure, and your enjoyment of the book is going to primarily be based on how well you can handle the 'smarmy self-aware divorced middle-aged scumbag narrates his life and how much a dick he is' core of the novel. There's some really fun philosophy here, and by the end the book has degenerated into very fun eldritch unknowable horror (Also that - by the ending things get....vague, so you gotta be okay with that too.). But the core, the message, the thing you'll remember most is basically "shitty white man is mediocre and has a breakdown *so hard* you guys."
That said - and it is a pretty off putting, trite concept - I'm intrigued by Kennedy's other books, because if they have a similar strength of style, prose (very modern, yes, but still) and interweaving plotting, with some great imagery... well, this was still a fast, fun, cool read. Maybe not going to be one of the things I most remember, but I'd also rather read this again than a number of other popular sci-fi books out there these days. If the blurb sounds good, pick it up, I doubt you'll be disappointed.
That said - and it is a pretty off putting, trite concept - I'm intrigued by Kennedy's other books, because if they have a similar strength of style, prose (very modern, yes, but still) and interweaving plotting, with some great imagery... well, this was still a fast, fun, cool read. Maybe not going to be one of the things I most remember, but I'd also rather read this again than a number of other popular sci-fi books out there these days. If the blurb sounds good, pick it up, I doubt you'll be disappointed.