Reviews

This author is one of my auto-buys. Everyone of her books is not a roaring success for me...but enough of them are to make it worth it!

I really enjoyed The Child Finder and The Enchanted is a book I loved so much I still think about it from time to time even years later. I wasn't too keen on The Butterfly Girl - too much gratuitous twistiness and not enough else to grab onto.

This book fell in third place for me-really engaging and enjoyable, but not quite as much as Child Finder and lacking the magic and resonation that blew The Enchanted out of the water.

spidermomsays's review

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dark emotional sad fast-paced

4.25

bookaddictpnw's review

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emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

lorikleininak's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I'm a Renee Denfeld completist, but her books are not for everyone. They are intense and tackle really challenging subject matter - incarceration, kidnapping, mental health, abuse. Sleeping Giants has themes around adoption, foster care, abuse, and a controversial therapy called "holding time" used on children (still to this day) with devastating outcomes.

Dennis Owens is nine years old when he escapes from his foster home and runs into the unforgiving ocean along the Oregon coast. If he's going to die, he's going to die on his own terms. 20 years later, his younger sister, Amanda, arrives on the coast to try to learn more about her brother's brief life. With the help a kind, retired cop, Amanda digs into secrets long buried by the local community. This is a fast paced, intense read, with a compelling side story about polar bears (I know, random, but compelling). I highly recommend (with a nod to content warnings).

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