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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Sexism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Grief, Car accident, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail
While there were definitely a lot of creepy and scary parts to this book, and I did like the underlying theme about Abby’s growth in self confidence and assertiveness, it felt like this short book was several different stories haphazardly mashed together - to the point where I don’t even know what was going on. What did the grinning man have to do with the skeletal cannibal creatures have to do with the dead bodies in the truck have to do with the mothman have to do with the truck driver? Not to mention the random electronics outage and the voices of People Who Are Not There? Was there a coherent story here, or was it just a series of random weird shit happening?
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This novella starts off strong, and I think it mostly maintains its momentum. We're pretty quickly thrown into chaos, and Laurel Hightower does an excellent job of continuing to up the stakes and push the story forward, forcing the character down a path that it feels difficult to imagine she can come back from. Great moments of tension and fear, some cool body horror, and an overarching sense of dread. The only gripes I have are the ending feeling a little "Huh?" and the wasted potential of making the protagonist a horror superfan on her way to a convention only to make very limited use of this fact throughout (we get maybe 1-2 horror references, maybe a line or two about knowledge learned from the genre). Why even include this detail about her at all? But all in all, a good creature feature and worth it to check out.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
tense
fast-paced
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Being so for real, did ANYONE read this after it was written, before it was published. There were so many inconsistencies that made reading this far too frustrating. If it was supposed to be that way to like, idk, show her mental state or be kind of nightmareish it did not come across for me.
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Very interesting conceit. The intersection of feminism and recent divorce is an excellent use case for the horror genre and I like the specific way Hightower uses horror classics like late night car rides, caves, a mysterious man, etc to draw out the underlying themes she’s getting at. I think this actually could have been served by being a bit longer and hitting more pointedly on some of descriptions of what was happening to Addy and her background interest in horror. I also think the Mads background felt slightly disconnected from the main plot themes and some more work there would have better served the story. But I was engrossed and enjoyed it greatly