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jen286's review against another edition
2.0
Indian Summer was an odd read for me. The way it was written made it not as suspenseful/scary as it should have been. That and the evil thing that was after them was kind of lame...
The book opens with what happened twenty years ago, what happened to Kenny. Now for some reason twenty years later the remaining friends are being killed off. The one friend is a cop so he searches the crime scenes looking for evidence (even though he is not on the case). What does he find? Quills. Like from a porcupine. And that is the scary element of the book. The one guy, Bill, saw quills one day when they were all in Dogtown before the accident. The quills. They are supposed to be really creepy/scary/whatever. Bill seems to be terrified of the quills, but they were just...not scary to me. I kept thinking of a porcupine and well...they don't instill terror in me. I was just like aw, porcupine. So the quills didn't work for me.
When you find out what is going on, who is responsible, what is really attacking them and why it didn't help the suspense. I just kind of rolled my eyes and said okay and finished reading the book. It was a quick read so that was good. The real issue though is the writing style. It is kind of clinical and detached so you don't really get attached to the characters. The beginning, what happened twenty years ago, was kind of boring to read. I thought it would pick up once it came to the present, but it didn't. It was better, but is still kept that detached clinical feel that prevented me from really identifying with the story.
This review was originally posted to Jen in Bookland
The book opens with what happened twenty years ago, what happened to Kenny. Now for some reason twenty years later the remaining friends are being killed off. The one friend is a cop so he searches the crime scenes looking for evidence (even though he is not on the case). What does he find? Quills. Like from a porcupine. And that is the scary element of the book. The one guy, Bill, saw quills one day when they were all in Dogtown before the accident. The quills. They are supposed to be really creepy/scary/whatever. Bill seems to be terrified of the quills, but they were just...not scary to me. I kept thinking of a porcupine and well...they don't instill terror in me. I was just like aw, porcupine. So the quills didn't work for me.
When you find out what is going on, who is responsible, what is really attacking them and why it didn't help the suspense. I just kind of rolled my eyes and said okay and finished reading the book. It was a quick read so that was good. The real issue though is the writing style. It is kind of clinical and detached so you don't really get attached to the characters. The beginning, what happened twenty years ago, was kind of boring to read. I thought it would pick up once it came to the present, but it didn't. It was better, but is still kept that detached clinical feel that prevented me from really identifying with the story.
This review was originally posted to Jen in Bookland
rowanoats's review
This book could've used an editor or proof reader or just a thorough readthrough before hitting "publish". So many basic spelling and grammar errors. So so much telling rather than showing. The amount of unnecessary details and one-dimensional characters made it impossible to finish. I try to find something good even in books I don't like but this was just embarrassing.
waden34's review
5.0
This was a very fun thriller. I didn't know what to expect when I started, but by the end of the first chapter I was hooked.
It was a suspenseful book successfully combining natural and supernatural elements. Even after the revelation near the end, I was still on edge waiting to find out what was going to happen next.
It was a suspenseful book successfully combining natural and supernatural elements. Even after the revelation near the end, I was still on edge waiting to find out what was going to happen next.
hannahwales3's review against another edition
1.0
Okay, I'm going to start with the fact that I love Aaron Mahnke. I adore Lore and the books that go with them. However, this book was really not good. From the very beginning, it just wasn't super compelling. I really had to force myself to read it. I found the characters to be unlikable and uninteresting. Once we started gearing up for the more "horror" aspect of the book, I was pumped. However, that was disappointing too. There was really no suspense and it wasn't thrilling at all. Honestly, it wasn't even really horror. It was basically just the presence of a monster. On a more nit-picky level, there were so. many. spelling/grammar. errors. It drove me insane. It felt like no one proofread this before it got published. As a whole, I honestly don't recommend. If you're into Mahnke, just skip this one. All of his other stuff is so much better.
heyitschzva's review against another edition
2.0
I felt like this book should have been longer to really build the suspense. The rising action started off well but cut off short with the characters making connections incredibly quickly, and then not running into much issue in the resolution. There are also parts of this book I felt dragged a bit, dispute the story's length. There is an entire chapter which is set at a funeral where it's just all expository dialogue and then the funeral gets one throw away line at the end. The killer seemed very obvious initially but then the focus on this other random event in the character's child hood seemed to shift the focus and when it came back around it didn't feel like it made the right kind of sense. I also really didn't feel great about the killer being this deranged Native American and just the general characterization of Native American's in this story generally. Also the constant references to how warm it was in October was unnecessary to establish that summer was running long. It comes up in almost every single chapter to such a ridiculous degree (pun intended).
I do like Aaron's writing, overall. It is very true to the way that he writes for the LORE podcast, and I would be interested in reading some of his other work.
I do like Aaron's writing, overall. It is very true to the way that he writes for the LORE podcast, and I would be interested in reading some of his other work.
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