Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Dare to Know by James Kennedy

3 reviews

jojo50's review

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-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

2.5

Not my favorite book. I expected an adventure involving the science behind predicting people's deaths. What I got was a weird LSD trip written out in book form.

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klara98's review

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challenging 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

3.25

The premise is really interesting, but the book lost me in the course of the trippy stream-of-consciousness ramblings of the narrator. There is a lot of suspense.
I was really disappointed by the wacked-out ending though.

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skudiklier's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Holy shit this book was wild. Just...the most mind-bending thing I have ever read, full stop.

I thought I knew what this book would be like; I read the summary, and the "letter to the reader" at the beginning was, in my opinion at the time of reading it, too detailed and spoilery. I thought it gave away exactly where the book was going.

I could not have been more wrong.

This book takes you on a journey for a while. It feels dark and weird, sure, but it also feels relatively expected. I took notes about how it felt aggressively white, and I rolled my eyes at some of the male-centric pieces I disliked.

But I don't even know how to talk about this book without giving it away...it's like one of those things where the premise is built on a twist, so you can't tell people why they should read/watch it, but you just reassure them "trust me, it gets better."

I don't know that I'd necessarily recommend this to anyone; it kind of fucked me up. It ended, and I was reeling, and then the eARC I got just went on with white pages for a while. There wasn't anything at the end to bring me back into the real world, no note from the author, nothing. I just was stuck having had this experience that no one could possibly understand or relate to.

What I will say is that this book made me think, and is still making me think. Kennedy is also amazing at referencing earlier small parts of the text that you nearly could have missed; all the little details we learn about the narrator's life, every small strange thing or tangent off to the side, it all comes back in the end. And it doesn't feel forced, even though it doesn't feel natural either—how could it, given how strange the ending is.

This book is a masterpiece, and unlike anything I've ever read. I don't know if I can forget it, even though part of me wishes I could.

Thank you to Netgalley and Quirk Books for the chance to review this ARC. 

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