Reviews with content warning for Colonisation - Winterset Hollow

Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham

15 reviews

confidenterr0r's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

The first quarter of the book was fantastic to me. The atmosphere and world building with the growing sense of “something isn’t quite right here” really pulled me in. That’s why I think the entire rest of the book disappointed me so much and fell flat. The 3 main characters were so very dull and dense. At first I thought it was on purpose since the

animals

are very full of personality by comparison but as the book went on…nope. They’re just dull and dense.

They’ll get major context clues that something horrible happened to the animals and they’re all just kinda like “welp. that’s wild.” and keep going. It took them until pretty late story to even fully recognize they’d been brought there against their will, like come on. I didn’t feel like any of the MCs truly acknowledged how their favorite little book was written and either continued idolizing it or just kinda…didn’t say much about it until the very end when Eamon suddenly realizes it in the final showdown with Bing for no particular reason, when he felt seemingly no remorse for the other 3 animals the whole book. By the end of the book I actually couldn’t stand Eamon with his high level plot armor and Christopher Columbus ancestry and watching him win by locking Finn in the same cage his ancestor did was infuriating. ~~I was rooting hard for Eamon to die but that’s neither here nor there lol~~

I wish the entire middle of the book would’ve been cut down a bit and added more focus on the lore since that’s where the book really seemed to shine. I found the action parts became repetitive and very quickly realized

the 3 MCs were not actually in danger of dying which made that portion drag on for me. They would just run through their major injuries without much hindrance while the animals stood 5 feet away missing every shot.

I do still recommend reading this since the concept itself was unique and the storybook characters were very enjoyable and vibrant. This is definitely an Eamon hate page but I seem to be in the minority so he may not bother you as much lol. The overall story was interesting enough to deal with his mary sue-ness and where Eamon and friends fall flat the storybook characters pick up the slack (ironically).

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gabography's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

wow, what a read. for the first time in years, i finished this book in 36 hours. it was that engrossing to me.
what an honestly bonkers concept turned out to be such a dark, fast paced, and surprisingly moving story written in a lovely prose that i can only imagine comes from the very stories that inspired the ensemble of not-so-cuddly creatures (some reviews did not care for that and some even called it pretentious, but i see what the author was going for and i loved it).
truly the only reason why this book doesn't earn a perfect five is due to the human characters, except for the one girl in the group named caroline who i liked a lot. to keep it as spoiler-free as possible because this book should be read blind, i found the main character to be the male equivalent of a mary sue at times, in the sense that you can tell he was the apple of the author's eye and had to be the most specialest lil guy of all the guys in the story, which felt a bit :/ as the story went on. while he was interesting and you feel for him, it all lining up the way it did just made me wish there was more there than just something that felt very "ope, he was special the whole time! surprise everyone!" like... okay. his male friend was also very one-note, left to be nothing more than the bumbling himbo sidekick who makes the main character look ever so clever and special in comparison. if not for his bravery and care for caroline and their relationship tugging at my heart, i would not care for him at all.
other than that, the world, the animal characters and their plight, the theme of trauma and loss and grief, all of it made for such a unique story that i know is going to stay with me. peter rabbit and friends are already looking a little more suspicious.

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ilaxaria's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes

4.5

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rivercat0338's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

The author's prose style is a lot. The story is worth pushing through if you can, however.

I wish the owls' part was explained better, and how Gene fits in. There's no way he doesn't have some idea of what was going on if

people you take out to a "deserted" island routinely vanish

Content Warnings

ssummar's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

Content Warnings

gondorgirl's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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franzys_whip's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Literally beautiful book. Think The Most Dangerous Game but like 10 times better (at least imo). Covers topics of colonialism (in sort of a fictional way but still) and being haunted by your past so well. Lighthearted/funny moments never felt forced or out of place, and there aren't so many of them in the hunt bits to make it lessen the sense of danger. Characters had so much depth and I loved every minute of it.

A teeny tiny bit slow in the beginning. Just a little. Coming from a person who reads pretty fast-paced books most of the time though, it's really not that bad.

#edward addington needs to choke on a bag of rotten horse dicks #olivia did nothing wrong #fuck manifest destiny and all of its consequences

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