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sarah984's review
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Just awful. I was expecting this to be a thriller about the murder game, but the game doesn't even start until just before the halfway mark, and it gets derailed so quickly that nothing is really even done with it. The description sounds exciting but everything is so slow-moving, with a bunch of bickering and deliberating before anyone does anything.
The characters are all very boring and stereotypical (almost offensively so with the book’s one Asian character, a quietly inscrutable Korean heiress who is obsessed with herbalism and exclusively eats kimchee). The culprit is glaringly obvious from almost the beginning because they are given these constant cartoonishly villainous descriptions. There is very little indication that this is a book in a series, so the cop’s emotional drama that takes up a huge amount of mid-book real estate and brings the plot to a crushing halt comes out of left field. One character narrates in first person and all other pov characters are third person for no discernible reason. The first-person character makes completely unbelievable decisions.
There are like four thousand plot twists and they're all stupid and boring. I hated this book.
The characters are all very boring and stereotypical (almost offensively so with the book’s one Asian character, a quietly inscrutable Korean heiress who is obsessed with herbalism and exclusively eats kimchee). The culprit is glaringly obvious from almost the beginning because they are given these constant cartoonishly villainous descriptions. There is very little indication that this is a book in a series, so the cop’s emotional drama that takes up a huge amount of mid-book real estate and brings the plot to a crushing halt comes out of left field. One character narrates in first person and all other pov characters are third person for no discernible reason. The first-person character makes completely unbelievable decisions.
There are like four thousand plot twists and they're all stupid and boring. I hated this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping and Trafficking
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Rape, Suicide, and Racism
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Fatphobia, and Infidelity
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