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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I couldn't really connect to the characters who (aside from Hayden) seemed a bit flat. I liked the concept of Sisyphus, but the story itself felt slow. I also agree with some reviews that the format didn't really add much to the story, and the locked-room aspect felt forced/unnecessary.
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu
This is a fantastic lockdown STEM thriller. It has so much to it. Going in I had no idea what to expect, and it took me a minute to really get pulled in, but I have to say, once I started it I couldn’t put it down. I read this book in one sitting.
There are moments when William Shakespeare seeps right into the words, and you feel him there inside your ear very much, like Horacio did into Hayden’s throughout much of the book. It was beautiful the way this was done props to the author for their wonderful prose.
There are a couple of scenes between Horatio and Hayden that are spicy AF and I’m totally here for it. It was crazy cool, how well that was done.
Even the building itself, Elsinore Labs is a character of its own and you feel it there. You can see it the entire time. You feel like you’re in it this pristine lab waiting for the cleanliness and the sterileness of the environment to choke you; and I sort of wonder if that’s what happened to Hayden.
All of the other characters, Felicia, Paul, Charlie, Graham, Hayden, and Horatio were all phenomenally written.
There were a few grammatical errors, sometimes in the chapter headings we’re instead of saying Excerpted it says Excepted. But I’m sure all of these errors will be fixed before the book is actually published in September.
The other things that happened grammatically that bothered me we’re all of the times that it said “started” or “began.” For a particular example something “started ringing” when it should just say it rang. I like a stronger verb tense in my reading so that’s just a personal preference but it’s something that pulled me out of the story each time it happened. I did not highlight each of those because that would’ve taken too much away from the reading itself. But I did highlight it once so that I wouldn’t forget it in my review.
I will copy my annotations below. Anything in red is something I really enjoyed anything and Blue is a grammatical error that I found. Some of my annotations may or may not contain spoilers so if you do not want any spoilers for the book, please skip the annotations.
So my overall review was four stars. It lost one star because of the grammar issues; but because the overall story came together, so well, I am totally giving this book a five star review phenomenal work by the author. They are a great author. I’m not sure if this is their first novel or not, but it is a great novel, and I will be picking up other stories from them. I look forward to when this book releases in September and I can get a physical copy. Maybe I’ll get really lucky and be able to get a signed copy by the author one day; that would be super cool.
The Death I Gave Him - Em X. Liu
# Chapter Eleven
> Hayden clenches my teeth so hard it hurts. “I know.”
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Red
- Progression: 40%
---
> The truth slips away, muddied like silt running into a riverbank.
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Red
- Progression: 41%
---
# Chapter Twelve
> Everything is too loud and quiet at the same time, like the shimmer before a thunderstorm, like the white-hot flash of a blow—pressure and weight before the pain hits. The kind of silence Hayden knows he can’t be the one to break.
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Red
- Progression: 46%
---
# Chapter Fourteen
> Did that mean that Charles’s moral compass was permanently broken? Once you kill one man, nothing matters anymore?
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Red
- Progression: 51%
---
# Chapter Sixteen
> Excepted from Tell Me A Tragedy
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 55%
---
> started ringing.
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 56%
---
> He learned up against the doorway,
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 57%
---
# Chapter Nineteen
> The upward crook of her lips drops
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 67%
---
# Chapter Twenty Two
> braces again him, rolls
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 79%
---
# Chapter Twenty Four
> Excepted from Tell Me A Tragedy
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 81%
---
# Chapter Twenty Six
> Excepted from Tell Me A Tragedy
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 86%
---
# Chapter Twenty Eight
> The snarling monster of a girl hiding in my chest, the one who wanted to shoot Hayden and blame Charles for it, she still exists inside me. Some days, she comes out, angry for no reason, hating the people she’s supposed to love.
> I want to smother her, but that only gives her more fuel, makes the tangled mess thicker and more snarled, until I can’t figure out where I end and where she begins. Or maybe there was never a division in the first place. Maybe I’m only deluding myself further.
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Red
- Progression: 94%
---
# Security footage; Armstrong Labs
> mostly likely
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 95%
---
Thank you to NetGalley and Rebellion for providing me with this ARC. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
This is a fantastic lockdown STEM thriller. It has so much to it. Going in I had no idea what to expect, and it took me a minute to really get pulled in, but I have to say, once I started it I couldn’t put it down. I read this book in one sitting.
There are moments when William Shakespeare seeps right into the words, and you feel him there inside your ear very much, like Horacio did into Hayden’s throughout much of the book. It was beautiful the way this was done props to the author for their wonderful prose.
There are a couple of scenes between Horatio and Hayden that are spicy AF and I’m totally here for it. It was crazy cool, how well that was done.
Even the building itself, Elsinore Labs is a character of its own and you feel it there. You can see it the entire time. You feel like you’re in it this pristine lab waiting for the cleanliness and the sterileness of the environment to choke you; and I sort of wonder if that’s what happened to Hayden.
All of the other characters, Felicia, Paul, Charlie, Graham, Hayden, and Horatio were all phenomenally written.
There were a few grammatical errors, sometimes in the chapter headings we’re instead of saying Excerpted it says Excepted. But I’m sure all of these errors will be fixed before the book is actually published in September.
The other things that happened grammatically that bothered me we’re all of the times that it said “started” or “began.” For a particular example something “started ringing” when it should just say it rang. I like a stronger verb tense in my reading so that’s just a personal preference but it’s something that pulled me out of the story each time it happened. I did not highlight each of those because that would’ve taken too much away from the reading itself. But I did highlight it once so that I wouldn’t forget it in my review.
I will copy my annotations below. Anything in red is something I really enjoyed anything and Blue is a grammatical error that I found. Some of my annotations may or may not contain spoilers so if you do not want any spoilers for the book, please skip the annotations.
So my overall review was four stars. It lost one star because of the grammar issues; but because the overall story came together, so well, I am totally giving this book a five star review phenomenal work by the author. They are a great author. I’m not sure if this is their first novel or not, but it is a great novel, and I will be picking up other stories from them. I look forward to when this book releases in September and I can get a physical copy. Maybe I’ll get really lucky and be able to get a signed copy by the author one day; that would be super cool.
The Death I Gave Him - Em X. Liu
# Chapter Eleven
> Hayden clenches my teeth so hard it hurts. “I know.”
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Red
- Progression: 40%
---
> The truth slips away, muddied like silt running into a riverbank.
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Red
- Progression: 41%
---
# Chapter Twelve
> Everything is too loud and quiet at the same time, like the shimmer before a thunderstorm, like the white-hot flash of a blow—pressure and weight before the pain hits. The kind of silence Hayden knows he can’t be the one to break.
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Red
- Progression: 46%
---
# Chapter Fourteen
> Did that mean that Charles’s moral compass was permanently broken? Once you kill one man, nothing matters anymore?
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Red
- Progression: 51%
---
# Chapter Sixteen
> Excepted from Tell Me A Tragedy
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 55%
---
> started ringing.
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 56%
---
> He learned up against the doorway,
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 57%
---
# Chapter Nineteen
> The upward crook of her lips drops
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 67%
---
# Chapter Twenty Two
> braces again him, rolls
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 79%
---
# Chapter Twenty Four
> Excepted from Tell Me A Tragedy
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 81%
---
# Chapter Twenty Six
> Excepted from Tell Me A Tragedy
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 86%
---
# Chapter Twenty Eight
> The snarling monster of a girl hiding in my chest, the one who wanted to shoot Hayden and blame Charles for it, she still exists inside me. Some days, she comes out, angry for no reason, hating the people she’s supposed to love.
> I want to smother her, but that only gives her more fuel, makes the tangled mess thicker and more snarled, until I can’t figure out where I end and where she begins. Or maybe there was never a division in the first place. Maybe I’m only deluding myself further.
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Red
- Progression: 94%
---
# Security footage; Armstrong Labs
> mostly likely
- Date: Apr 17, 2023
- Colour: Blue
- Progression: 95%
---
Thank you to NetGalley and Rebellion for providing me with this ARC. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The thing about retellings is that most people already know the story, and the constellations formed by the characters in it. The author’s ability to rely on plot twists and other unexpected events is, in this case, severely limited. In other words, it leads to a book that has to rely primarily on its execution, and it takes a skilled writer to pull that sort of thing off. I’m no literary critic, but if enjoyment alone can be a mark of success, then I can say with confidence that Liu succeeded.
Even the most superficial familiarity with Hamlet means that you’ll know instantly who the characters are; who killed Hayden’s father shouldn’t be a mystery at all (which might be why I couldn't really think of this book as a 'thriller'). They still feel fresh, though, put in the context of a sci-fi (yet not so distant) future. Add to that the fact that The Death I Gave Him is written like a fictionalized account of real events (with the occasional footnotes helping with the immersion), which made it feel more ‘real’, in a way, and it makes for quite an engaging story. There’s also an interesting consequence of that type of narrative: for a book centered around Hayden/Hamlet, we hear (almost) nothing from Hayden himself; with the exception of the last chapter, we only ever see him through the lens of others, be it Felicia or the fictional scientist who’d decided to write Hayden’s story down. Which, naturally, begs the question of how much of it was real? Was the author’s interpretation of Hayden accurate? Even the way he was described in Felicia’s chapters made sense – it irked me at first, the poetic, sometimes exaggerated language, until I realized that those are meant to be excerpts from her own published recounting of the story, so it was only natural that the narration was a bit embellished, more organized and clearer than a character’s thoughts would be.
It didn’t take much to guess who the romance would revolve around, but I still spent the first half of the book trying to figure out how it was going to be handled. And then the second half of the book I spent crying about a fictional AI program.
And also about Hayden, just a teensy bit – whose terror in the face of his physicality was way too relatable.
Which brings me to the most pleasant surprise I got from this book: it actually made me feel something for the characters; even Rasmussen, who appeared on the so pages briefly compared to the others. For Felicia, for Hayden, but most of all, for Horatio, with his hopeless devotion of someone forced into the role of an observer when all he wants is to be able to do so much more than just watch.
And yet, the ending was almost hopeful. That was a nice twist.
Even the most superficial familiarity with Hamlet means that you’ll know instantly who the characters are; who killed Hayden’s father shouldn’t be a mystery at all (which might be why I couldn't really think of this book as a 'thriller'). They still feel fresh, though, put in the context of a sci-fi (yet not so distant) future. Add to that the fact that The Death I Gave Him is written like a fictionalized account of real events (with the occasional footnotes helping with the immersion), which made it feel more ‘real’, in a way, and it makes for quite an engaging story. There’s also an interesting consequence of that type of narrative: for a book centered around Hayden/Hamlet, we hear (almost) nothing from Hayden himself; with the exception of the last chapter, we only ever see him through the lens of others, be it Felicia or the fictional scientist who’d decided to write Hayden’s story down. Which, naturally, begs the question of how much of it was real? Was the author’s interpretation of Hayden accurate? Even the way he was described in Felicia’s chapters made sense – it irked me at first, the poetic, sometimes exaggerated language, until I realized that those are meant to be excerpts from her own published recounting of the story, so it was only natural that the narration was a bit embellished, more organized and clearer than a character’s thoughts would be.
It didn’t take much to guess who the romance would revolve around, but I still spent the first half of the book trying to figure out how it was going to be handled. And then the second half of the book I spent crying about a fictional AI program.
And also about Hayden, just a teensy bit – whose terror in the face of his physicality was way too relatable.
(...) the horror of your body being only a body, a fleshy, visceral thing that you are made up of, this fatigued puppet, this breaking vessel.
Which brings me to the most pleasant surprise I got from this book: it actually made me feel something for the characters; even Rasmussen, who appeared on the so pages briefly compared to the others. For Felicia, for Hayden, but most of all, for Horatio, with his hopeless devotion of someone forced into the role of an observer when all he wants is to be able to do so much more than just watch.
And yet, the ending was almost hopeful. That was a nice twist.
You’ll have good days and shitty days and eventually there’ll just be days, you know?