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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Really enjoyed the Daphne vs the town aspect, incredibly eerie reminding me of It Follows. At first the anxiety aspect of the story was solid but as it went on, it became rather tedious so it lowered my overall enjoyment of the book.
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cannibalism
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Alcoholism, Drug use
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
listen, i see the vision, it just didn't work for me.
daphne is very much striving to be the next cultural horror movie icon, but i just didn't find her as scary as she thinks she is. i found the writing style interesting at first, i liked the way malerman jumps back and forth between flashbacks/recollections/lore and present day, i thought it felt very seamless, but after a while it just started to get old and it dragged a little. malerman really nails the small town claustrophobia vibes as well as the general tension and suspense, but it also felt very stagnant at times. i liked how many povs we got bc it made the town feel very populated and tightly knit, but that also meant that a lot of the book is just cutting to what different characters are doing at the same time. also there's like just enough supernatural elements in here to make you double take, but not quite enough to actually spook me.
this felt very much like a concept horror movie, but like not in a good way. for quite a lot of it you could make the reasonable assumption that daphne is a metaphor for the way anxiety can be debilitating because the more you think about it the more it affects you until you feel like you're dying, and even through all the murders i started to wonder if there would even be an explanation that made sense. when the girls start getting crushed by an unseen force, it just started to get a bit goofy for me. i kept waiting for some kind of interesting twist; maybe the legends about daphne got something wrong, or maybe the locals all unfairly demonised her, or maybe the circumstances of her death were worse than originally thought, or just like SOMETHING. but instead nah, daphne is literally just a weirdo who was murdered by the basketball team and it turns out that that's okay and actually justified bc she's a cannibal i guess? so everything we heard about her in the legends was just?? true?? i also can't prove it but i feel like there's some element of transphobia in the way that she's constantly being described as a large hulking woman with huge hands who hides her face with grotesque makeup, etc etc etc. it's never explicitly transphobic or anything but there's a common refrain about how she was so huge that officials assume that only a man could be that large, except the girls basketball team is insistent that the culprit could also be a woman. is that trans allyship or a hate crime. idk who knows. anyway i just feel like a legend that turns out to be basically entirely true plus extra more horrible stuff isn't very compelling bc it's just so?? straightforward? like what you see is exactly what you get, but with extra steps bc coach wanda is involved also, which i did not see coming and didn't find to be particularly well set up. the ending makes it so that kit literally defeats daphne by standing up to her own anxiety, so forgive me if the entire book feels like a ham-fisted way to describe the all-consuming nature of anxiety/depression/generational trauma with all the subtlety of a loaded gun.
vibes were alright i guess
daphne is very much striving to be the next cultural horror movie icon, but i just didn't find her as scary as she thinks she is. i found the writing style interesting at first, i liked the way malerman jumps back and forth between flashbacks/recollections/lore and present day, i thought it felt very seamless, but after a while it just started to get old and it dragged a little. malerman really nails the small town claustrophobia vibes as well as the general tension and suspense, but it also felt very stagnant at times. i liked how many povs we got bc it made the town feel very populated and tightly knit, but that also meant that a lot of the book is just cutting to what different characters are doing at the same time. also there's like just enough supernatural elements in here to make you double take, but not quite enough to actually spook me.
this felt very much like a concept horror movie, but like not in a good way. for quite a lot of it you could make the reasonable assumption that daphne is a metaphor for the way anxiety can be debilitating because the more you think about it the more it affects you until you feel like you're dying, and even through all the murders i started to wonder if there would even be an explanation that made sense. when the girls start getting crushed by an unseen force, it just started to get a bit goofy for me. i kept waiting for some kind of interesting twist; maybe the legends about daphne got something wrong, or maybe the locals all unfairly demonised her, or maybe the circumstances of her death were worse than originally thought, or just like SOMETHING. but instead nah, daphne is literally just a weirdo who was murdered by the basketball team and it turns out that that's okay and actually justified bc she's a cannibal i guess? so everything we heard about her in the legends was just?? true?? i also can't prove it but i feel like there's some element of transphobia in the way that she's constantly being described as a large hulking woman with huge hands who hides her face with grotesque makeup, etc etc etc. it's never explicitly transphobic or anything but there's a common refrain about how she was so huge that officials assume that only a man could be that large, except the girls basketball team is insistent that the culprit could also be a woman. is that trans allyship or a hate crime. idk who knows. anyway i just feel like a legend that turns out to be basically entirely true plus extra more horrible stuff isn't very compelling bc it's just so?? straightforward? like what you see is exactly what you get, but with extra steps bc coach wanda is involved also, which i did not see coming and didn't find to be particularly well set up. the ending makes it so that kit literally defeats daphne by standing up to her own anxiety, so forgive me if the entire book feels like a ham-fisted way to describe the all-consuming nature of anxiety/depression/generational trauma with all the subtlety of a loaded gun.
vibes were alright i guess
I don’t know what exactly made this a middle of the road book for me, but I could never decide how I felt about it. Sometimes the metaphor felt too heavy handed, sometimes it felt perfect. It seemed like the book itself couldn’t decide if it was truly supernatural or not (and by the end, there are plot holes clear even to me, who usually misses them all). And I really didn’t appreciate how all the mothers just seemed like carbon copies of the daughter. There was potential, but it just didn’t land for me
The book centers on a girl’s high school basketball team in a small town in Michigan that find themselves seemingly the target of the titular character, Daphne.
This story is both about that story but also anxiety and collectively forgetting. Half way through the book I realized the legend of Daphne was a vehicle to discuss how people choose to sweep under the rug ugly truths and even deny their existence. Denying the people of the town the opportunity to process all that has been happening.
It’s about a teen girl’s struggle to bring to the light that which scares her, to help her cope and live a healthier existence than the start of the book.
It’s not too scary, though the descriptions of what happens to Daphne’s victims was particularly gruesome.
Daphne herself was a unique serial killer - a 7 feet tall chain-smoking, whisky drinking, denim aficionado, who listens to 80s Metal.
I would say the weaker part of the book is the first 30 pages, once past that it’s a quick and easy read.
This story is both about that story but also anxiety and collectively forgetting. Half way through the book I realized the legend of Daphne was a vehicle to discuss how people choose to sweep under the rug ugly truths and even deny their existence. Denying the people of the town the opportunity to process all that has been happening.
It’s about a teen girl’s struggle to bring to the light that which scares her, to help her cope and live a healthier existence than the start of the book.
It’s not too scary, though the descriptions of what happens to Daphne’s victims was particularly gruesome.
Daphne herself was a unique serial killer - a 7 feet tall chain-smoking, whisky drinking, denim aficionado, who listens to 80s Metal.
I would say the weaker part of the book is the first 30 pages, once past that it’s a quick and easy read.
The premise of this story is intriguing, I love a good slasher story! However this feels more like a rough draft. Everything is very minimal and simplistic. The character are flat. The world is flat. The villain in the most fleshed out part and even she is border line flat. Josh Malerman has great ideas but I feel like he always stumbles with execution. The writing in general just felt off to me. As stated before, it was just simplistic with no substance deeper than a paper cut.
2.5/5
2.5/5