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3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
dark
tense
fast-paced
"Together, we sank into the sludge of time."
Lex goes from the nerdy, oldest girl in a family that starves their offspring and chains them to their beds, to the heroic girl that figures a way out and saves them all. But being "saved" is relative, and Lex slowly realizes that not all her siblings get the same happily ever after that she does.
Quick (maybe too quick) and packed full of generational disappointment and masculine bitterness, this one veers closer to 'My Dark Vanessa' in tone, if not content, than to other crime novels. I thought Dean held back in a lot of areas that many less thoughtful authors would have garishly dived into, which made this more readable. It absolutely reads like true-crime, so if you want that vibe without the prickly conscious of being entertained by real people's trauma, then this might be for you!
Read If:
- You come from a town made infamous by tragedy
- You like some grime
- You want trauma without the explicit sexual content that often comes with it
Lex goes from the nerdy, oldest girl in a family that starves their offspring and chains them to their beds, to the heroic girl that figures a way out and saves them all. But being "saved" is relative, and Lex slowly realizes that not all her siblings get the same happily ever after that she does.
Quick (maybe too quick) and packed full of generational disappointment and masculine bitterness, this one veers closer to 'My Dark Vanessa' in tone, if not content, than to other crime novels. I thought Dean held back in a lot of areas that many less thoughtful authors would have garishly dived into, which made this more readable. It absolutely reads like true-crime, so if you want that vibe without the prickly conscious of being entertained by real people's trauma, then this might be for you!
Read If:
- You come from a town made infamous by tragedy
- You like some grime
- You want trauma without the explicit sexual content that often comes with it
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse
Moderate: Child death
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
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:
Complicated
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Beautiful writing and heartbreaking story, but I just felt a bit drowsy when reading it, not sure why.
I'm going to be honest, I finished this probably a week ago but I've had such a book hangover. I've actually read two more books and started two more since finishing this, but I wasn't ready to articulate my feelings yet. So here's the thing, I have watched and read a lot about cults, and people who turn to religion and then bend it to their own personal agendas And let me just start by saying this is not that book. It's not the book where you see how much this family suffers under the forceful hand of this God that this father has imagined. Instead this book looks at mental health in a really interesting way, and honestly anyone who knows anything about cults should be thinking about mental health. Because most of us don't go off the deep end, and grab a Bible and then just like lose our minds, and then talk other people into joining us into our craziness. That's not a regular occurrence, it happens more than you would think, but it's it's more than just egotism. So girl A, I adore how real she is, she's on the edge of unlikable, I liked her because she was unlikable personally, And I think that unlikable and unreliable narrators tend to be the best because of the most human. Because if we tell stories about ourselves, and we tell you a half truths, we're probably hiding something. It's for self-preservation. So if you want to book that basically it rails against religion, and it's God said this, I for and I God said that, this is not that book; and for that I am beyond grateful. I think it's very easy to just start slinging biblical language around, and using it to make people look horrible. And I think it's very easy to slip into a lot of traps when it comes to writing about this particular kind of family scenario. This book does not do that, it did not follow any of the rules, and I loved that. And by rules I mean not just in terms of how it's written, what it avoids, what it digs into, even though that's all wonderful. I also enjoy how it set up in terms of chapters, it does something really interesting that takes a hot minute to get used to but really works as a whole. It's very skillful, and sometimes you get these thrillery mystery books that are not well written, this is well done. I look forward to reading more of Dean's work in the future.
DNF on page 118.
So, my Grandma with her bad feet walks faster than this book. The pace was PAINFULLY slow. Nothing happened in the half of book I read. Nothing had been revealed and nothing was built up.
This book was honestly the book equivalent of stubbing your toe and I actually have no clue how people finished it, let alone liked it.
A sad day when it had such a good premise!
So, my Grandma with her bad feet walks faster than this book. The pace was PAINFULLY slow. Nothing happened in the half of book I read. Nothing had been revealed and nothing was built up.
This book was honestly the book equivalent of stubbing your toe and I actually have no clue how people finished it, let alone liked it.
A sad day when it had such a good premise!
Achtung, das ist kein Thriller, auch wenn das Buch vielleicht so einen Eindruck macht auf den ersten Blick. Ich hab mich da ein bisschen getäuscht. Aber wer lesen kann ist klar im Vorteil - auf dem Cover steht 'Roman'.
Als ich begonnen habe zu lesen war ich mir nicht sicher wohin diese Geschichte führen wird. Das Thema ist doch sehr düster. Denn es geht um das 'wie konnte es soweit kommen'.
Im Buch springt der Leser zwischen der Vergangenheit und der Gegenwart hin und her. Man begleitet hauptsächlich Girl A - Lex - durch ihre Kindheit und Jugend. Gebannt verfolgt man mit wie der Vater von einem 'creepy dad' zu einem völlig abgedrifteten Fanatiker wird.
Er missbraucht seine Kinder (nicht sexuell, aber dennoch physisch) und sieht sich selbst als eine Art Messias.
Die Dinge die im Namen Gottes getan werden... don't get me started, das ist eine ganz andere Diskussion.
Während man gespannt die Vergangenheit aufarbeitet erfährt man was aus Lex und den anderen geworden ist.
Das ist auf jeden Fall spannend zu lesen, keine Frage.
Trotzdem wartete ich auf den roten Faden. Ich war mich nicht sicher wann die richtige Geschichte beginnt. Ich wartete auf etwas das nicht kommen würde.
Wie ich schon geschrieben habe hatte ich mehr 'Thriller-artiges' erwartet.
Klar steht drauf 'Roman' - aber ich habe es doch irgendwie krasser, extremer, emotionaler, weniger distanziert erwartet.
Das Buch ist auf jeden Fall gute Unterhaltung, wenn man weiß das die Haupt-Protagonistin ihre Geschichte recht sachlich und gefasst erzählt.
Es gibt einen kleine Twist am Ende, aber den habe ich zu lange kommen sehen, um 'geschockt' zu sein.
***
Sachliche und kühle Aufarbeitung einer grausigen Vergangenheit.
Als ich begonnen habe zu lesen war ich mir nicht sicher wohin diese Geschichte führen wird. Das Thema ist doch sehr düster. Denn es geht um das 'wie konnte es soweit kommen'.
Im Buch springt der Leser zwischen der Vergangenheit und der Gegenwart hin und her. Man begleitet hauptsächlich Girl A - Lex - durch ihre Kindheit und Jugend. Gebannt verfolgt man mit wie der Vater von einem 'creepy dad' zu einem völlig abgedrifteten Fanatiker wird.
Er missbraucht seine Kinder (nicht sexuell, aber dennoch physisch) und sieht sich selbst als eine Art Messias.
Die Dinge die im Namen Gottes getan werden... don't get me started, das ist eine ganz andere Diskussion.
Während man gespannt die Vergangenheit aufarbeitet erfährt man was aus Lex und den anderen geworden ist.
Das ist auf jeden Fall spannend zu lesen, keine Frage.
Trotzdem wartete ich auf den roten Faden. Ich war mich nicht sicher wann die richtige Geschichte beginnt. Ich wartete auf etwas das nicht kommen würde.
Wie ich schon geschrieben habe hatte ich mehr 'Thriller-artiges' erwartet.
Klar steht drauf 'Roman' - aber ich habe es doch irgendwie krasser, extremer, emotionaler, weniger distanziert erwartet.
Das Buch ist auf jeden Fall gute Unterhaltung, wenn man weiß das die Haupt-Protagonistin ihre Geschichte recht sachlich und gefasst erzählt.
Es gibt einen kleine Twist am Ende, aber den habe ich zu lange kommen sehen, um 'geschockt' zu sein.
***
Sachliche und kühle Aufarbeitung einer grausigen Vergangenheit.
El libro esta bien escrito y seguramente sera bueno, pero no me engancha, supongo que es porque esperaba un thriller y no lo es, o no lo parece. Va de unos chicos que han recibido torturas psicológicas y fisicas por parte de sus padres, y te cuentan lo que ocurre despues, cuando ya ha finalizado esto, es decir, es un drama, y no tengo el cuerpo para dramas.
Edito: lo abandone al 30% y me he leido el final, y me alegro de haberlo abandonado, porque ocurre una de las cosas que no soporto ni en libros ni en pelis. Al menos asi me he ahorrado un 60% del libro
Edito: lo abandone al 30% y me he leido el final, y me alegro de haberlo abandonado, porque ocurre una de las cosas que no soporto ni en libros ni en pelis. Al menos asi me he ahorrado un 60% del libro
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes