Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

2 reviews

its_kievan's review against another edition

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

1.5

It just isn’t a very scary book, and the lacklustre central mystery  isn’t enough to make up for it. It seems like a lot of modern horror books - Hidden Pictures, Mister Magic, The Hollow Places - all follow the same pattern of one-dimensional characters fumbling their way through shoestring plots, littered with (and maybe this is just a me thing) endless brand name dropping. Dear writers, you do not need to specify that a character has a The LEGO Movie(TM) poster on his wall. You can just say poster. I promise it will make your prose better. Maybe I’m being a bit harsh on Jason Rekulak here; it might just be because I was really hoping for something better. Then again, he did write a book where the twist is that
a rich liberal family kidnapped a child and forcibly changed their gender
so maybe I’m being too kind. Also the pictures were kinda shit. Anyway, don’t bother with this book. Go read The Only Good Indians instead.

EDIT: After reading some reviews on Goodreads (yes, boo Amazon, but StoryGraph doesn’t let me sort by popularity) it’s looking more and more like the transphobic undertones were on purpose. So I’m happy to announce that not only is this a poorly-written book, it’s also a bigoted one. Good stuff.
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toofondofbooks_'s review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This had potential, and I was really genuinely enjoying it until about the last 100 pages or so. There's really not much I can say about what I didn't like about this book with this review remaining spoiler free, but I'll try to be as cryptic as possible. It really guts me that this was a 5 star prediction lol

First though, I do want to bring up its merits, because I think that it has some.

Things I liked: It's set in a small town based on a real town that not only is near to where I live but that I've been to several times and it mentions several landmarks that are familiar to me. I also liked the illustration elements and how they get spookier and spookier as the book goes on.

Things I didn't like: Pretty much everything else but especially the big plot twist at the end. Absolutely the stupidest thing in the world. Made half of the book absolutely pointless. This could've been edited down to just 200 pages and it would've been better and not as much of a waste of time.

I only add the half a star because I have a soft spot for the small town that the book is based on.
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