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3.21 AVERAGE
3.21 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Good book, maybe better than just good. Definitely creepy
Being extremely descriptive is not the same thing as telling a story:
I would love for my whole review to just be "The heat was clarifying in the way of orgasm, akin to blowing your nose." That's an actual sentence in the book, and I'm not sure what it is supposed to convey but it's in there. I thought just putting that sentence here would be enough, but I decided to go into a little more detail. The book was bad, very bad. It's a top contender for the worst book I've ever read. It's top three, no question. Somehow the author managed to write an entire book where nothing actually happens. Here is why it was irredeemable in my opinion.
Action is off screen: it was like reading about an armed robbery by observing two friends running into each other and having a chat in the parking lot of the bank that was being robbed. They're unaware of what's happening inside and we just have to read descriptions about them and listen to their conversation.
Third person omniscient: normally fine, but the character who's inner thoughts and feelings we were privy to kept changing. As characters were having conversations, there were deep dives into their feelings and history behind what they were saying. As an audience we can't distrust people who we are supposed to distrust because we know all of their histories and inner workings. This doesn't work so well for a thriller. We can't wonder if somebody really did something that they said because we are just told that they did it and even why they did it and how they were feeling during that time. Also there was a lot of "they didn't know this, but..." followed by giving away facts or details that would have been better to find out through actual storytelling. We were also told about things that were going to happen at some indeterminate point in the future to random people who were not part of the story. It was like providing foreshadowing for something that we would never experience.
Racism/sexism: I can't tell if the author is trying to write racist characters or is racist himself. His racist characters seem to be caricatures of what he thinks racism looks like, or how he thinks racist people think, which makes it somewhat indistinguishable from just being racist. There were a few times where I couldn't tell if a racist thought was supposed to be taken as something a character thought or if it was actual exposition by the author. All of the same can be said about the sexism in the book.
Overly descriptive with little plot: It took forever to get anywhere. There were endless descriptions of people and their thoughts and feelings and backgrounds and their relatives and friends (and the thoughts, feelings, and backgrounds of their relatives and friends) with very little real action. He is very descriptive and detailed but somehow managed to evade the most important aspects of any particular object or event he described. In pursuit of being detailed, the story felt completely neglected and empty.
For example there were at least four pages about a sound, and how it was a big sound, and what people thought about the sound, and said about the sound, and felt about the sound, and that the sound meant something had happened, confirmed that something was happening, and to experience it was similar to experiencing other things, and how you don't normally think to be afraid of sounds, and how do you explain this sound to other people, and in fact how do you explain *any* sound to other people, and on and on. All of this without one word describing what it actually sounded like, and the whole while nothing moving the plot forward.
Terrible sex scenes: the sex descriptions were incredibly odd and out of place, it felt like a smut mag was shuffled into the novel. The descriptions were so detailed and strange and it was quite jarring to run into random graphic erotica for no apparent reason.
Attempts at fourth wall breaking humor: there were several (real life!) and (get it?) ends to sentences that were clearly puns or references to things that had already happened. If you have to explain a joke, it's not a good joke. If you have to make sure I'm getting a reference, it was a dumb reference.
To summarize this review, I will steal another sentence from the book: "The trees moved a little in the wind, but that was the only thing that happened."
I would love for my whole review to just be "The heat was clarifying in the way of orgasm, akin to blowing your nose." That's an actual sentence in the book, and I'm not sure what it is supposed to convey but it's in there. I thought just putting that sentence here would be enough, but I decided to go into a little more detail. The book was bad, very bad. It's a top contender for the worst book I've ever read. It's top three, no question. Somehow the author managed to write an entire book where nothing actually happens. Here is why it was irredeemable in my opinion.
Action is off screen: it was like reading about an armed robbery by observing two friends running into each other and having a chat in the parking lot of the bank that was being robbed. They're unaware of what's happening inside and we just have to read descriptions about them and listen to their conversation.
Third person omniscient: normally fine, but the character who's inner thoughts and feelings we were privy to kept changing. As characters were having conversations, there were deep dives into their feelings and history behind what they were saying. As an audience we can't distrust people who we are supposed to distrust because we know all of their histories and inner workings. This doesn't work so well for a thriller. We can't wonder if somebody really did something that they said because we are just told that they did it and even why they did it and how they were feeling during that time. Also there was a lot of "they didn't know this, but..." followed by giving away facts or details that would have been better to find out through actual storytelling. We were also told about things that were going to happen at some indeterminate point in the future to random people who were not part of the story. It was like providing foreshadowing for something that we would never experience.
Racism/sexism: I can't tell if the author is trying to write racist characters or is racist himself. His racist characters seem to be caricatures of what he thinks racism looks like, or how he thinks racist people think, which makes it somewhat indistinguishable from just being racist. There were a few times where I couldn't tell if a racist thought was supposed to be taken as something a character thought or if it was actual exposition by the author. All of the same can be said about the sexism in the book.
Overly descriptive with little plot: It took forever to get anywhere. There were endless descriptions of people and their thoughts and feelings and backgrounds and their relatives and friends (and the thoughts, feelings, and backgrounds of their relatives and friends) with very little real action. He is very descriptive and detailed but somehow managed to evade the most important aspects of any particular object or event he described. In pursuit of being detailed, the story felt completely neglected and empty.
For example there were at least four pages about a sound, and how it was a big sound, and what people thought about the sound, and said about the sound, and felt about the sound, and that the sound meant something had happened, confirmed that something was happening, and to experience it was similar to experiencing other things, and how you don't normally think to be afraid of sounds, and how do you explain this sound to other people, and in fact how do you explain *any* sound to other people, and on and on. All of this without one word describing what it actually sounded like, and the whole while nothing moving the plot forward.
Terrible sex scenes: the sex descriptions were incredibly odd and out of place, it felt like a smut mag was shuffled into the novel. The descriptions were so detailed and strange and it was quite jarring to run into random graphic erotica for no apparent reason.
Attempts at fourth wall breaking humor: there were several (real life!) and (get it?) ends to sentences that were clearly puns or references to things that had already happened. If you have to explain a joke, it's not a good joke. If you have to make sure I'm getting a reference, it was a dumb reference.
To summarize this review, I will steal another sentence from the book: "The trees moved a little in the wind, but that was the only thing that happened."
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
slow-paced
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I thought this book was just fine. I actually watched the movie adaptation a while back, not realizing it was based on a novel, and there were some aspects of the movie that I actually liked better. Overall, I think the movie had more of a sense of suspense and did a better job of conveying that something serious was going on outside of their isolation. I also liked the ending of the movie better. The book just had so much back and forth between the characters as they tried to decide what to do, and I felt like I was just waiting for something to happen the whole second half of it.
If the synopsis seems interesting to you, I’d give it a go, but this isn’t one that I’d say you need to read.
If the synopsis seems interesting to you, I’d give it a go, but this isn’t one that I’d say you need to read.
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Definitely interesting. Not something i would reread. Borrowed at the library.
mysterious
medium-paced