Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Geisterwand

I was so captivated by this book but find myself at a loss for what to say about it! I loved Moss's writing, combining beautiful descriptions of nature with sharp perception of human behavior and beliefs. There is a lot packed into this short novel: the dangers of idolizing the past, how gender roles play out in everyday life and throughout history, and how both can ultimately lead to violence. Dark, disturbing, and atmospheric. I loved it.

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caitlynleahy's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

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

4.75

Ghost Wall is a short novella about Silvie, her parents, three archeology students, and their professor as they partake in a two week historical reenactment of England's Iron Ages. It's heavy, with a large portion of the book focusing on Silvie's abusive father.
Stylistically, it feels like reading Silvie's diary or being inside her thoughts. The lack of quotation marks for dialogue feels confusing at first but as the book progresses, it gets easier to determine who is speaking.
I will say that the ending felt rushed, and like it would benefit from five or so pages.

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starstruk99's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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neni's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Interesting narrative style. The continuous (almost stream of consciousness) narration kinda reminded me of José Saramago’s writing style, because it doesn’t use any paragraph breaks or punctuation other than commas and periods. Although it did make my understanding of the story sometimes a little more complicated (especially in the dialogue bits, where I had trouble figuring out who exactly was talking), I think it was a great choice for this type of story. The author did an amazing job in completely immersing the reader in the story, and the non stop narration as well as the fact we were in the main character’s head the whole time (which came with the full set of her trauma induced biases) served to create a tense, unsettling, borderline claustrophobic feeling that fit the themes and the mood of the story perfectly. That said, this isn’t the type of fun, engaging read to let go for a while, it comes with a load of trigger warnings and the whole thing is about dark and disturbing themes.

I can’t say I “enjoyed” this because it was honestly kind of disturbing, but it was definitely an interesting reading experience and the author is clearly very talented. I simply cannot give more than 4 stars to something that so disturbed me, but that’s not a fault of the book itself, just a personal preference/subjective reading experience thing.

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