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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
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:
No
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- could've been shorter, perhaps a novella
- the climax was interesting but everything leading up to it was somewhat repetitive
- little to no character development
- great overall concept
- the climax was interesting but everything leading up to it was somewhat repetitive
- little to no character development
- great overall concept
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt
Moderate: Death, Gore, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Murder
Minor: Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Pregnancy, Alcohol
dark
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:
No
TIDEPOOL has an interesting premise, but ruins it by showing all of its' cards immediately. the story runs itself into circles (and into the ground) with sorrow's endless cycle of trying to leave tidepool only to be detained, so much show that the long-awaited denouement of the town's destruction is met not with catharsis or horror, but boredom. the writing is rudimentary and repetitive to the point where even the characters seem exhausted to be living in such a dull narrative. if that weren't bad enough, the ending is drawn out for several chapters of exposition that nobody asked for, leaving TIDEPOOL as lifeless and bloated as the corpses that litter its beach. by the end, very little has changed, and even less has been said.
half a star for ada canonically feeding transphobes to the lords below.
half a star for ada canonically feeding transphobes to the lords below.
An immersive and creepy cosmic horror story. Loved the characters, Ada Oliver in particular – it's always a good sign when you end up being a fan of a character despite the horrendous things they do! There's a gradually building sense of dread as the lore is revealed, and it all explodes into madness at the end as you'd hope. Great read!
Tidepool was the book I was most looking forward to reading this fall. I had been searching for horror set in a seaside town to briefly transport me from the oppressive heat of the south this summer, and on that front, this book did not disappoint.
The core story of Tidepool is fairly good. It is also decently edited. The writing is fine. It suffers a bit from redundancy. I stopped counting how many times the author described something as “odd.” Many of the same adjectives or phrases are recycled over and over - enough to stand out - which would be fine except that the plot itself, too, began to repeat itself and to the point that I felt it dragged on longer than it should have.
Sorrow goes to Tidepool in search of her brother. The food is terrible. The stew is watery. The bread is dry. The room is small. The people there want her to leave. Sorrow also wants to leave but cannot because something or another happens and she is asked to stay. The next day, to food is still terrible, the stew still watery, the bread still dry, her room still small, she still wants to leave, but something else happens and she is told to stay. This continues on and on until you are tired of reading about the stew and the bread and the room and the people. It is a bit like a disappointing Groundhog Day. It did not add a sense of claustrophobia or impending doom and, if anything, only served to make me dislike Sorrow and find her pretentious and whiney, which she is.
As I said, the story of what is truly happening in Tidepool is interesting. The book simply failed to make me give a d*** about what happened to any of its characters. The writing was mostly good and well edited, it just drug for me. When the ending arrived, I did not find it any more interesting than the rest of the book. It felt like the sexuality of a minor character was interjected in the last page of the novel as a means of checking some sort of box, which lost points for me as well (not because of the sexuality, but because it was unnecessary and did not serve any purpose).
I had planned on recommending the book to my mother, but having finished it now, probably won’t. 2.5 stars for potential, below average in terms of execution (maybe should be marketed to young adults). The story was unique enough for me to be willing to give this author another try down the line.
If you are looking for a supernatural book that will make you fear bodies of water, read John Langan’s The Fisherman instead (or in addition to). If you’re looking for a book about someone searching for their disappeared sibling in an uninviting, remote town, try Ronald Malfi’s Bone White. If you have similar reading suggestions for me as well, please leave them in the comments!
The core story of Tidepool is fairly good. It is also decently edited. The writing is fine. It suffers a bit from redundancy. I stopped counting how many times the author described something as “odd.” Many of the same adjectives or phrases are recycled over and over - enough to stand out - which would be fine except that the plot itself, too, began to repeat itself and to the point that I felt it dragged on longer than it should have.
Sorrow goes to Tidepool in search of her brother. The food is terrible. The stew is watery. The bread is dry. The room is small. The people there want her to leave. Sorrow also wants to leave but cannot because something or another happens and she is asked to stay. The next day, to food is still terrible, the stew still watery, the bread still dry, her room still small, she still wants to leave, but something else happens and she is told to stay. This continues on and on until you are tired of reading about the stew and the bread and the room and the people. It is a bit like a disappointing Groundhog Day. It did not add a sense of claustrophobia or impending doom and, if anything, only served to make me dislike Sorrow and find her pretentious and whiney, which she is.
As I said, the story of what is truly happening in Tidepool is interesting. The book simply failed to make me give a d*** about what happened to any of its characters. The writing was mostly good and well edited, it just drug for me. When the ending arrived, I did not find it any more interesting than the rest of the book. It felt like the sexuality of a minor character was interjected in the last page of the novel as a means of checking some sort of box, which lost points for me as well (not because of the sexuality, but because it was unnecessary and did not serve any purpose).
I had planned on recommending the book to my mother, but having finished it now, probably won’t. 2.5 stars for potential, below average in terms of execution (maybe should be marketed to young adults). The story was unique enough for me to be willing to give this author another try down the line.
If you are looking for a supernatural book that will make you fear bodies of water, read John Langan’s The Fisherman instead (or in addition to). If you’re looking for a book about someone searching for their disappeared sibling in an uninviting, remote town, try Ronald Malfi’s Bone White. If you have similar reading suggestions for me as well, please leave them in the comments!
kinda the point of Lovecraft is he showed and never told, this book does a lot of telling.
also you don't have to just shoehorn transphobia in for some reason???
also you don't have to just shoehorn transphobia in for some reason???
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I always hated being by the water, even before I drowned in 1851.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC of this book
Tidepool takes place in a coastal city in 1913 where mysterious things occur. When her brother goes missing, Sorrow Hamilton (yes, that's her name) goes to the town to try and find him and well ... she finds some other things.
The book certainly starts off strong, it has a very captivating first chapter and the premise of a creepy "fishy" story. I liked the setting and how tangible the whole atmosphere is and I really like the couple of chapters that were set in the past to provide some sort of backstory. It's quick to read and captivating enough to keep you going. However, I felt the book shows its hand pretty early on and then really struggles with finding its voice and committing to it.
The characters and the dialogues all felt very flat to me. Sorrow is a 21 year old who sounds a lot like a teenager and doesn't really have a whole lot of personality, to be honest. I was disappointed that a book centered around two core sibling relationships is so quick to brush over both of these bonds and offers only a surface-level view of it all. Sorrow disobeys her father and travels to Tidepool to find her brother but when she gets her answers, she shows almost no emotion? Her discovery has almost no psychological effect on her (unless you count the very last few pages which ... more on that later). A lot of the drama felt manufactured, the characters have to leave town but then, for some random reason, they decide to stay or they decide to do something else first that prevents them from leaving town or, ... the main goal is always to leave town and I understand that in classic storytelling the whole structure tells you to present the characters with obstacle after obstacle but these obstacles are supposed to increase in intensity and to kind of make sense; here, most of it really feels unnatural.
Another issue I had with the story was that, as I mentioned, it reveals the mystery really early on (we know part of it by the end of the very short first chapter and the rest that is revealed pretty soon after is not that much of a question mark). The main plot here is to see if Sorrow leaves town as we know the whole town mystery before she knows (and she finds out most of it pretty soon, as I said). Since we've seen the "monster" at the start, the story loses this element of suspense and wonder which I think that, such a unique type of monster, could have been a huge asset to use.
Lastly, I may be nitpicking now but the story ends a good 50-60 pages before the actual end. There's not much to keep reading for and yet there are chapters after chapters of epilogue that really could have been simplified or just foregone altogether.
Overall, I liked the premise and I think there was a lot of potential here but, ultimately, I see this mostly as a 2.5 star read. It's good enough but it could have been so much better.
Thank you to NetGalley and Independent Publishers Group for the e-ARC!
One day on a routine business trip Henry Hamilton goes missing. His sister, Sorrow, immediately begins a desperate search for him that leads her to Tidepool, an oceanside town with grim secrets and a hatred for prying outsiders.
I loved the premise of this book and thought this would become a favourite of mine but some things don't work out. The story is good but after 3 chapters I was sure I could guess how this book would end. That just isn't something I want in horror. To be fair, I don't think this book ever intended to focus on the horror but the hopelessness and desperation of an outsider trying to make sense of an unfathomable loss.
That's not to say Tidepool wasn't well-written; it was just a bit too predictable. Another thing that irked me was the indecisiveness of Sorrow and her friend. Their plans sawaw so much it got frustrating.
For example:
In one chapter Sorrow wanted to leave but Charles didn't. One page later he finally agreed but she changed her mind and wanted to stay...this exact fight happened several times.
Also, without spoiling anything, Ada's POV was the best part of this book. I loved it and I loved her reasoning even if she was wrong.
"she had to wonder: if God existed, could He intervene in a town like this?"
One day on a routine business trip Henry Hamilton goes missing. His sister, Sorrow, immediately begins a desperate search for him that leads her to Tidepool, an oceanside town with grim secrets and a hatred for prying outsiders.
I loved the premise of this book and thought this would become a favourite of mine but some things don't work out. The story is good but after 3 chapters I was sure I could guess how this book would end. That just isn't something I want in horror. To be fair, I don't think this book ever intended to focus on the horror but the hopelessness and desperation of an outsider trying to make sense of an unfathomable loss.
That's not to say Tidepool wasn't well-written; it was just a bit too predictable. Another thing that irked me was the indecisiveness of Sorrow and her friend. Their plans sawaw so much it got frustrating.
For example:
In one chapter Sorrow wanted to leave but Charles didn't. One page later he finally agreed but she changed her mind and wanted to stay...this exact fight happened several times.
Also, without spoiling anything, Ada's POV was the best part of this book. I loved it and I loved her reasoning even if she was wrong.
*Content Warning* - Gore, unwanted sexual advances, suicide attempts, PTSD, and stillborn babies
Thank you Parliament House Press for the eARC! Omg this was such an amazing book! I got chills from reading it. I totally agree with Willson’s dedication because horror is amazing and will beat serious fiction any day. This entire novel has such a dark, eerie, and mysterious vibe that I really enjoyed and it drew me deep into the story right away. The setting was so spooky and was just so well written. It was easy to imagine how dismal Tidepool was and I swear I could smell dead fish by the time I finished reading it. The characters were superbly written and it was great because I don’t think anyone was totally good or evil. The villain was morally grey too, so it was hard to automatically disagree with what they were doing. The book does pose a good question though of whether it’s ok to sacrifice one bad person to save an entire town. One thing I really enjoyed about this story was how Willson includes chapters of other people’s POV in order to add more information and backstory to the plot. Also this ending omg I think it ended perfectly. I love how you get to see the ending from multiple peoples’ perspectives and how everybody’s storyline gets tied up. Oooh and the gore! The gore was the icing on this horror cake. The kill scenes were quite gruesome and added to the chills you had going down your spine from the already eerie vibe of the book. Overall, this book is amazing and spectacular and you will not want to put it down! Go check it out I highly recommend it!
Thank you Parliament House Press for the eARC! Omg this was such an amazing book! I got chills from reading it. I totally agree with Willson’s dedication because horror is amazing and will beat serious fiction any day. This entire novel has such a dark, eerie, and mysterious vibe that I really enjoyed and it drew me deep into the story right away. The setting was so spooky and was just so well written. It was easy to imagine how dismal Tidepool was and I swear I could smell dead fish by the time I finished reading it. The characters were superbly written and it was great because I don’t think anyone was totally good or evil. The villain was morally grey too, so it was hard to automatically disagree with what they were doing. The book does pose a good question though of whether it’s ok to sacrifice one bad person to save an entire town. One thing I really enjoyed about this story was how Willson includes chapters of other people’s POV in order to add more information and backstory to the plot. Also this ending omg I think it ended perfectly. I love how you get to see the ending from multiple peoples’ perspectives and how everybody’s storyline gets tied up. Oooh and the gore! The gore was the icing on this horror cake. The kill scenes were quite gruesome and added to the chills you had going down your spine from the already eerie vibe of the book. Overall, this book is amazing and spectacular and you will not want to put it down! Go check it out I highly recommend it!