Reviews with content warning for Gore - The Cabin at the End of the World

I have no idea what happened or why. The ending is ambiguous which I feel hurts the book, and leaves the reader wishing for a more concise ending. The chapters are entirely too long too which makes the book drag on, and the writing is fairly repetitive.

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cassie7e's review against another edition

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dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

3 stars (Rating might be higher if I was a regular horror/slasher fan)

I very much prefer psychological or gothic thrillers to the pure horror genre, and didn't quite know what I was getting into with this one. On top of that, this book is one massive example of the Trolley Problem, except that it's unclear if the consequences are real. The book does a great job of lending credibility to both possibilities and favoring neither. But gives hs absolutely no reason why the predicament exists in the first place or why the solutions would solve it. Felt very shallow and I didn't really care what happened to the characters besides Wen. The ending was not very satisfying to me and normally I don't mind open endings. Perhaps all this is why I didn't find all the violence and threats compelling. But also pleasant to read a story with normalized queer rep.

I strongly disliked Amy Landon's narration performance. Dialogue sounded stilted and over-voiced, over-serious, over-monotonous. Some of this was her struggling to do male voices, but some of this was a strange tone used for the whole text. This is not a book to listen to on audio for this reason.

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sbnielsen's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

I am really torn on this one. I got incredibly annoyed by the apocalypse premise and felt a bit like the author was beating a dead horse after a while. The characters were all obnoxious except the kid. I guess I expected more unique elements from this book than what I actually got based on the reviews. For an apocalypse home invasion story, it's spot on for what I expected.

<Spoiler>Wen's death came very suddenly despite the build up of violence up to that moment. After Wen's death I thought the story floundered. The build up of Eric's buy in to the apocalypse premise was too slow to really make the suicidal ideation make sense for me. I ended the story thinking everyone was an idiot and an asshole. I wish I had been able to really root for a character that had agency or power in the situation.</Spoiler>

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_morgreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

1.25

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