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itsmemckell's review against another edition
It’s a DNF from me. This book had WAY too much going on, I couldn’t keep up with all the moving pieces. It just exhausted me mentally instead of the goal of keeping me interested. It only gets 2 stars because low-key I want to know what happened (just not enough to finish the book)
caiteatspaper's review against another edition
challenging
slow-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
This book is TOO MUCH. So many different characters and very hard to follow. Not my cup of tea.
sampisters's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
4.25
rg9400's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
This is a really impressive speculative fiction murder mystery. Brilliant concept with such cool rules and mechanics that I sort of want a videogame of this book, like ASAP. The prose is sharp, and it's doing some interesting things with characters as well. It's an extremely ambitious story about trying to unravel a murder while stuck in a loop, and anything more would spoil part of the reading experience. Uncovering how different things work was part of the fun. At the end, the 500+ page count might be a bit too ambitious as it becomes very intricate and slightly unwieldy, but I respect it a lot, especially because a lot of things do land even if everything does not. Highly recommended. Sharing some more detailed but spoilery thoughts below.
I think there are basically multiple layers within this book, and each layer is somewhat distinct. At the very base level, the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle and its resolution was pretty enjoyable. I do think it takes a backseat a bit in the second half, causing some of the reveals to not have as much impact, but I still thought it was overall very good with solid twists throughout. I did struggle to keep all the clues straight at times though. The prose and character work are fairly sharp for a murder mystery as well. The mechanics and concept of the story are brilliant. I've obviously mentioned multiple times how various rules are pretty cool, like how hosts worked together or how the sequence of hosts could change the result. Each host had unique limitations and abilities (though the writing of Ravencourt dripped with malicious fatphobia). It was also clever how he could jump back into hosts that lost consciousness. My main negative here is that I was hoping that at the end, I had an aha moment where I saw how the entire day worked from start to finish as one large plan by the host. But at times, I struggled to follow the sequence of events, causality, and even when the day "changed", struggled to understand how. I think the core issue was just the size of the book, making it become a bit unwieldy with so many hosts. The part of the book that left me wanting was the meta layer of all the different hosts and plague doctor. I was underwhelmed with the explanations, and I think a lot of those elements were underdeveloped and distracting, especially as they were not as well integrated into the underlying mystery and narrative. While I liked the reveal that Daniel was the third person stuck in the loop, I found his end to be a bit anticlimactic. We learn nothing about Silver Tear/Josephine to care about her. The reveal that Anna was a criminal was completely flat for me. She displays none of that in this book, and her torturing and killing Aiden's sister has no impact because we don't see it. We do not know who Annabelle Coulter was, so why should we care that Anna was Annabelle? The book emphasizes it more and more as it goes on, and though I like the idea of it, I found the execution to be distracting from what is otherwise an excellent story because it feels completely superfluous to the story. It would have been better had these been actual characters we see within Blackheath
I think there are basically multiple layers within this book, and each layer is somewhat distinct. At the very base level, the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle and its resolution was pretty enjoyable. I do think it takes a backseat a bit in the second half, causing some of the reveals to not have as much impact, but I still thought it was overall very good with solid twists throughout. I did struggle to keep all the clues straight at times though. The prose and character work are fairly sharp for a murder mystery as well. The mechanics and concept of the story are brilliant. I've obviously mentioned multiple times how various rules are pretty cool, like how hosts worked together or how the sequence of hosts could change the result. Each host had unique limitations and abilities (though the writing of Ravencourt dripped with malicious fatphobia). It was also clever how he could jump back into hosts that lost consciousness. My main negative here is that I was hoping that at the end, I had an aha moment where I saw how the entire day worked from start to finish as one large plan by the host. But at times, I struggled to follow the sequence of events, causality, and even when the day "changed", struggled to understand how. I think the core issue was just the size of the book, making it become a bit unwieldy with so many hosts. The part of the book that left me wanting was the meta layer of all the different hosts and plague doctor. I was underwhelmed with the explanations, and I think a lot of those elements were underdeveloped and distracting, especially as they were not as well integrated into the underlying mystery and narrative. While I liked the reveal that Daniel was the third person stuck in the loop, I found his end to be a bit anticlimactic. We learn nothing about Silver Tear/Josephine to care about her. The reveal that Anna was a criminal was completely flat for me. She displays none of that in this book, and her torturing and killing Aiden's sister has no impact because we don't see it. We do not know who Annabelle Coulter was, so why should we care that Anna was Annabelle? The book emphasizes it more and more as it goes on, and though I like the idea of it, I found the execution to be distracting from what is otherwise an excellent story because it feels completely superfluous to the story. It would have been better had these been actual characters we see within Blackheath
botoole's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
emilymf's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
the concept was very interesting to read and the plot was also pretty interesting and not hard to get into. however as i got towards the end it got harder to follow the characters half formed thoughts, so trying to understand what they knew became harder. it would’ve been better if the character fully formed the thought. could be interesting to reread though. the ending was a bit overly complicated but still somewhat satisfying.
abbyw923's review against another edition
i don’t like stories where it’s a first person about a man
dodokeks90's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5