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3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
First half was okay, second half I was just looking for something to keep me interested and hoping that something else was going to happen. This one was about a lot of things and nothing at all at the same time
More somehwere like 3.75 rounded up? This book was interesting. Thank you to Goodreads/Nightfire for an ARC! I hate it took me SO long to get to it!
I really enjoyed the pacing of this story and I liked the interwoven-ness of the multiple viewpoints. I did get a little bored towards the end, just wanting to know what was going on. I also found it interesting that the real mystery is who is who and what is what, not who did what. I enjoyed that about it and I found all the characters really fun to read about. No spoilers but overall I was just not invested in Pearl's story. I get it but when it came down to just her story I was kind of not as intrigued. Otherwise, I felt this was a fun twisty story that confuses you in the best way!
I really enjoyed the pacing of this story and I liked the interwoven-ness of the multiple viewpoints. I did get a little bored towards the end, just wanting to know what was going on. I also found it interesting that the real mystery is who is who and what is what, not who did what. I enjoyed that about it and I found all the characters really fun to read about. No spoilers but overall I was just not invested in Pearl's story. I get it but when it came down to just her story I was kind of not as intrigued. Otherwise, I felt this was a fun twisty story that confuses you in the best way!
I love Catriona Ward's books, all of them. This one is also excellent. Her writing and character building is excellent. Lots of twists and turns, highly recommended if you like thrillers.
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The book was great until the ending. Oh my god, the ending has so many unnecessary twists that make it confusing and ruins the storyline. There are too many inceptions and it tried to be too many things, a story about serial killers, witchcraft, a slow descent into madness. It was too much and it brought my overall rating down from a 4 to a 3.25.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
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:
Yes
Looking Glass Sound is a masterclass in narrative fiction. Ward's deft, hand-crafted, detailed, slow-burn narrative leaves you reeling with twists and turns.
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
The first third of this book was 5 stars but it’s petered out after that. If the details of the first portion had been expanded and the story ended with Nat’s dad being the killer and it being unknown who took the polaroid pictures I would have been happy.
I loved the theme of who owns the story but when the Pearl narrative was introduced, I felt like the layers of story within a story had gone one step too far.
This was my first read of this author and I would try another book.
I loved the theme of who owns the story but when the Pearl narrative was introduced, I felt like the layers of story within a story had gone one step too far.
This was my first read of this author and I would try another book.
The Last House on Needless Street is one of my favorite books, and I enjoyed Sundial as well. I had high expectations for Looking Glass Sound, particularly in the areas of world building and plotting, and these were mostly met. Ward has a wonderful, galloping writing style that sweeps you from one vivid scene to the next without it seeming jarring, despite the fact that this book has numerous transitions between eras and the characters who are narrating. Other reviewers have nicely summarized the wildly twisty plot, so I will not re-hash the plot arc here, but I do have a reflection on the use of queer narratives in the text. Ward uses sexuality, curiosity, and queer erotic tension to build suspense in her plot, which is understandably effective. In places, the novel reads like The Secret History or These Violent Delights, which have wonderfully rich queer subtexts. However, readers who are hoping for a similarly three dimensional realization of Looking Glass Sound’s queerness may be disappointed. Specifically, Nat and Wilder’s nascent attraction simply serves to create conflict that propels the eventual discovery of the barrel women. Wilder and Sky’s romance, while delightful for about 50 pages, is also cut short when we realize that we are now in a different book where the genders are reversed. At the end of the book, we come to realize that the female protagonist, Pearl, has changed the gender of herself and Wilder in The Sound and the Dagger to “try to see it from his side.” Then, inexplicably, in Pearl’s version of Looking Glass Sound, Wilder is a middle aged man who is in the process of divorcing a woman.
In short, I think it would have been possible to maintain the desired plot structure while not continually changing the sexual orientation/gender of the characters, which made a sensitive, fully realized queer romance impossible to sustain (and also made the characters’ queerness a “gimmick” to propel the plot in places).
In short, I think it would have been possible to maintain the desired plot structure while not continually changing the sexual orientation/gender of the characters, which made a sensitive, fully realized queer romance impossible to sustain (and also made the characters’ queerness a “gimmick” to propel the plot in places).