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tamara_joy's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, Grief, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Forced institutionalization, and Medical content
Minor: Gaslighting, Drug use, Vomit, and Eating disorder
mjgarcia193's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
So this is one of those books that you're fairly certain, from early on, is a low star read. And then the shoe finally drops and the rating jumps up. It took me about 100 pages to actually get into the book. And even at that point, I thought this was a book that wanted to be a ghost story, but was gonna end up just being about a manic pixie dream girl who kills herself and then the main character, a regular white Joe, can have a spiritual journey or whatever . That's not what this was. It was a ghost story, which I was hoping for, but it was also about grief and mental health and fear of life. I identified with every subject mentioned. I will say that it stumbled along. Especially in the beginning, I couldn't gather whether this was a ghost story or something tamer/non horror and that was a negative aspect for me. At times it felt like the author couldn't decide either. In this part of the novel, I was sure this was at best a 3 star read. But once Hannah died and Nick had to start working through his grief and the mystery of why she died things really picked up. I was pretty satisfied with the answers. I dont feel that there was much ambiguity in the ending, which I prefer. I will mention that Dolnick's writing style is a bit annoying at times due to large sentences that have a lot of commas and should really be broken down. I'm talking like long, run on sentences. I also could have lived without the baby birds scene .
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Mental illness, and Suicide
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