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princessleopard's review
1.0
Preface: I received a free copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
This was not a good read, I'll say that up front. You generally have to be more lenient with short stories in terms of pacing, but this one is really all over the place. Things go from 0-60 in the blink of an eye, to the point where it's almost laughable. The main character, John, is stunningly inept from start to finish, and the story becomes a comedy of errors that just rockets up the ridiculousness more as the story goes on. The villain's turn is unexpected and silly, the kills are bizarre and largely off-screen, and the ending is so confusing that I still really don't understand what happened or why. I really can't explain this story in a coherent way because it's so tangled and confusing in terms of when and why things happen. I definitely don't understand the author's choice to split this up into a trilogy of short stories vs one novel, aside from $$$. It certainly does the story a disservice by rushing things - this story definitely needed more time to breathe and develop. As it is, it's rushed, jumbled, and needlessly baffling.
This was not a good read, I'll say that up front. You generally have to be more lenient with short stories in terms of pacing, but this one is really all over the place. Things go from 0-60 in the blink of an eye, to the point where it's almost laughable. The main character, John, is stunningly inept from start to finish, and the story becomes a comedy of errors that just rockets up the ridiculousness more as the story goes on. The villain's turn is unexpected and silly, the kills are bizarre and largely off-screen, and the ending is so confusing that I still really don't understand what happened or why. I really can't explain this story in a coherent way because it's so tangled and confusing in terms of when and why things happen. I definitely don't understand the author's choice to split this up into a trilogy of short stories vs one novel, aside from $$$. It certainly does the story a disservice by rushing things - this story definitely needed more time to breathe and develop. As it is, it's rushed, jumbled, and needlessly baffling.
fireproofbunny's review
4.0
It takes a certain level of skill to create a story that is so unsettling and mind boggling. At first I thought the story's main character was John, it wasn’t until I was a few pages in that I realized who the rather what the main was, the freaking forest. Granted this story is about John, the boys, Annie, Mike and James but it would be nothing without the forest. Often appearing to be living labyrinth intent on keeping all that enter. Which actually sort of reminded me of 2016 movie "The Forest"(look it up after reading you would understand).
The turn off for me when dealing with such a large cast and two storylines was the abrupt jump between the stories always happening at vital moments. Made me want to scream. The merging of the two was amazing the conclusion was insane and frustrating.
The turn off for me when dealing with such a large cast and two storylines was the abrupt jump between the stories always happening at vital moments. Made me want to scream. The merging of the two was amazing the conclusion was insane and frustrating.
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