Reviews with content warning for Death - The Appeal

Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

41 reviews

laurensm_th's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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christygsp's review against another edition

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4.5

Honestly, this book was a dark horse for me! I didn’t expect to make it past 40 pages but I was in from start to finish.
The layout of reading correspondence and other documents was done very well, and I kept want to read just one more email. Though I will say that while I was waiting for an actual murder to happen, I did get a bit impatient.
The way this mystery was unravelled was clever, intriguing and kept my brain working all through. When I had a theory, something new came up and shook it. At the end I was half right and half wrong, which led to a great mic drop reveal!

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gemmie_gee's review against another edition

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funny mysterious sad fast-paced

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

4.0

Hiya! (Issy reference - I might start using that greeting now) I love a good murder mystery and it’s so refreshing to read it in this format! I will say it was hard in the beginning to find out who’s who, especially since there were 15-ish characters in the story that the reader had to keep up with. It was quite a whirlwind to read all of these emails and try to piece the story together. We don’t know who gets “murdered” until the last quarter of the book. I was hoping to guess who the murderer was, but I wish there was a bit more leeway to let the reader try to figure it out instead of having the two lawyers spell it out for the reader (or maybe I’m just dumb). But overall, I couldn’t put the book down. It’s one of my favorite books to read during my commute!

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gabi_tron's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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lizzielove2016's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

2.75

This book was kind of a mess. While I can appreciate that mixed media format can be a little confusing at times, this book was just a whole lot of what the heck is happening and why is it happening. My rating is this high mostly because of the parts that were more so a mystery and how the format was. I feel like you couldn't get a chance to get to know the characters because we kept bouncing around so much. Having this many characters in one book also made it so confusing. I would also like to say that the plot "twists" aren't very shocking at all. I would say if you've read a lot of thrillers/mysteries, maybe just skip this one.

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isabellalinares's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

It was such a fun read and the format was exciting. A great change of pace. Loved taking notes while reading to try and figure it all out.

I've already recommended it to so many people.

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abetterpaige's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was my book club’s January pick, and I’m so glad that it was! Take everything you thought you knew about mysteries and throw it out the window when you read The Appeal. A captivating story, focusing around a murder in an adult theater drama group, told only in correspondence. Emails, texts, memos, and more give you the full story… or not.

I had such a FUN time reading this and I am not a true crime or mystery person by nature. Above all else, I’m a nosey bitch, so reading other peoples’ emails and texts is fun. Every time I turned the page I would come up with a new theory only to find myself proven wrong a few emails later… it was absolutely enthralling and a blast to read.

I docked one star for pacing, though I’m sure it was intentional, as I felt the time pre-murder was about 40-50 pages too long and the time post murder was about 40-50 pages too short. I thought it got too predictable to guess who would be killed (you don’t know until you KNOW) and I would’ve loved for there to be some additional correspondence after the fact.

Fair warning - you will hate every single person you meet at one point or another. As one woman in my book club said, “I would rather die than be in a room with all of these characters at once.” Which, well, I suppose one of the characters did exactly that.

10/10 would recommend for a book club, for anyone who wants to switch up their reading, or someone who wants an experiential book!

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alywise's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.25

I really like when books feel like nothing has happened, and then all of the sudden a bombshell drops and you realize stuff has been happening the whole time! This felt like… like Liane Moriarty meets Agatha Christie. I was left with some loose ends (who the actual f was Jackie Marsh? Did she ever get her passport back?), but mostly felt like the author gave appropriate closure and answers, without spoon feeding it to the reader.

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katiekat1357's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

LOVE THIS BOOOOK! However told in completely in files mostly email it is hard to get full pictures of characters but extremely gripping, mysterious and TWISTY!

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vkitoria's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious medium-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

4.0

this was so much fun! i like an epistolary novel once in a while and this one was pretty well done.

i figured out some of the big aspects of the mystery, but missed a few key details. one of them i’m totally kicking myself over because it’s so obvious in hindsight:

whenever a mystery involves a sick little kid, i should immediately suspect munchausens by proxy.

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