Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Το χαμένο παιδί by Christian White

5 reviews

rainbow_narwhal's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I listened to the audiobook of this. The narrator spoke with an Australian accent and put on an American accent when she spoke as characters in Manson. I liked it. The story just made me feel a bit sad though. Homophobia is real and the reprogramming stuff happens. It made me so sad and frustrated. I found the story good and interesting to follow. This is the second book I read of White’s and I really liked the wife and the widow. 
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any_bethany's review against another edition

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dark sad medium-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? No

2.5

Beware the blatant fatphobia!
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anna_hepworth's review against another edition

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2.0

Author had a range of interesting ideas, but they didn't gel into a story that worked for me. About a third of the way through, I skipped to the end to find out where things get to, and concluded that the plot was at least interesting enough to find out how it got from where I was to where it was going.

Plot was strong, world-building was a bit shaky and kept throwing me out of the story; characters mostly didn't read like people (and the way that ephemeral characters seemed to be almost caricatures based on physical characteristics was disconcerting); writing is strong but wasn't enough to support the issues with world-building and characterisation.

Two examples of my issues with the characterisation:
  1. we learn that one character is African-American because we get to read a personals ad that they have put in a 'looking for love' column; there was nothing else that I noticed that gave me any sense of 'race' other than 'white' (split into 'Australian' and 'American') for any of the other characters.
    This is one of the characters that dies onscreen, in what seemed a completely irrelevant scene
  2. One older woman is introduced and characterised as fat and slovenly, mostly so that a later character can be compared to her, and some unkind comparisons drawn. 

I found the quality of the writing off putting, given that the book had a literary prize sticker on the front; I would have been less judgemental about it had I realised that it was a prize for an unpublished manuscript, and thus would have been holding it to a different standard. I would still have had the same response, but I wouldn't have had the 'how the hell did this get a literary award' response. 

The plot was very convoluted. I realise that real life is messy, but this was too convoluted for my preferences, particularly when
a story about discovering that you were kidnapped as a child gets a couple of murders thrown in, almost for funsies.
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carlytenille's review against another edition

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mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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monsterenergies's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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