Reviews - Hemlock Island: A Novel

1.03k reviews for:

Hemlock Island: A Novel

Kelley Armstrong

3.47 AVERAGE

full_kay's review against another edition

4.0

emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

dmg13's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

xxfirerainbowxx's review against another edition

5.0

dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I really enjoyed this book from start to finish. It got really gross at the end but I loved it. It was creepy
and gorey and so good.

ivy_reyn's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

cinlovesbooks's review against another edition

4.0

emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

elainep08's review against another edition

2.0

This book seemed so promising, even with the blurb being a little cluttered it had a great premise. However, it fell so flat almost immediately. Even if you can get through the clunky sentence structure and obvious mistakes the dialog is awkward and it seemed after the first 100 pages that the author had no idea what she herself was even writing. The ending was very lack luster. It doesn’t look like a gore book but it is and that’s something people should know going in. There are typically two writing styles, people who plot and people who “pants” or make it up as they go. There are tons of great books that use the pants method but I think this author could have gone back after writing and cleaned it up, the red herrings seemed ridiculous and I caught myself rolling my eyes more than once. Being the genre it is I feel like there weren’t enough “clues” or foreshadowing and everything was dumped onto the page when the author thought of it. Grappling with talk of the pandemic the book dates itself multiple times and i wouldn't be surprised if it read as "old" in five years because of that. The main character being an author felt like a glaringly obvious self insert and was kind of cringy to read about when it came up. While the author wrote suspense scenes well I found it really hard to actually buy into the suspense because this book was so ridiculous start to finish that it didn’t truly feel scary most of the time. I saw another review compare the first half to scooby doo and that’s painfully accurate.

msb_thelibrarian's review against another edition

3.0

I listened to the audio and liked it but the story escalated into something I didn’t expect. I feel the author took a turn into the a mystical realm that neither the characters nor the audience could have imagined. The clues were almost non-existent and it almost seems like a lazy twist. The main characters divorce is ridiculous but their reunion even more so. I liked the premise but the arc was a stretch.