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olo_bear's review
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
phantomfan2009's review
dark
mysterious
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? Yes
4.5
pascalibrary's review against another edition
2.0
2/5. Seed by Ania Ahlborn was painfully mediocre. It had so many glaring flaws and not enough redeemers to make up for them.
What is the bare minimum for a horror book? Spooky elements? Check! Atmosphere. Nope! Dark tone? Nope! Well-defined characters? Ehhhh. This book fails as horror. There are creepy happenings throughout, but when they lack a scary backdrop to be set against, they are meaningless. Seriously, Ahlborn's prose is almost exclusively dedicated to internal monologues and dialogue. There is minimal environmental description or scene setting. The book is set in rural Louisiana which is a perfect place for a novel like this, but Ahlborn never utilizes it. There's never an overarching feeling, so the scares are fleeting and empty.
The characters are okay, except for one factor which I'll get to later. The story follows a family of four who are besieged by some kind of demon. This family is the only reason to go through the book, and they barely kept me going. They are very basic people, yet they respond realistically to each other, for the most part. The relationships felt like they existed before I brought my eyes to that first page. That doesn't mean that the characters are anywhere near three-dimensional. Like I said, they are very, very basic, but I have to wonder if this is because we only ever see them within the main plot, responding to specific circumstances. Maybe if there were scenes of extraneous character development...
If I am being generous with my reading, I could say that Seed has a decent subtext about mental health, or problems in general. You can't bury or suppress or run away from your issues, you need to confront them before they grow even bigger. The problem with this though, is that a message like this only works well if its tied into a character's arc. I won't spoil anything overtly here, but the main character explicitly doesn't follow this message. It is so infuriating, because his actions are the only thing moving this story forward, but he never learns. He keeps doing the same stupid stuff over and over and over and over and by the end I was screaming at him.
I don't know if this is even worth a mention, but the book is incredibly similar to the horror movie Insidious. Like eerily similar. Like shares some very specific concepts that I haven't really seen in any other media. And Seed came out a year after Insidious did. In fact, Seed owes a lot to the horror movie classics, because it continually steals bits and pieces from each movie. I say steal because there is nothing original here, and its almost always the best moments from those movies.
The book isn't good. This is sad to me because Seed has been on my list for years now. I can't recommend this to anyone.
What is the bare minimum for a horror book? Spooky elements? Check! Atmosphere. Nope! Dark tone? Nope! Well-defined characters? Ehhhh. This book fails as horror. There are creepy happenings throughout, but when they lack a scary backdrop to be set against, they are meaningless. Seriously, Ahlborn's prose is almost exclusively dedicated to internal monologues and dialogue. There is minimal environmental description or scene setting. The book is set in rural Louisiana which is a perfect place for a novel like this, but Ahlborn never utilizes it. There's never an overarching feeling, so the scares are fleeting and empty.
The characters are okay, except for one factor which I'll get to later. The story follows a family of four who are besieged by some kind of demon. This family is the only reason to go through the book, and they barely kept me going. They are very basic people, yet they respond realistically to each other, for the most part. The relationships felt like they existed before I brought my eyes to that first page. That doesn't mean that the characters are anywhere near three-dimensional. Like I said, they are very, very basic, but I have to wonder if this is because we only ever see them within the main plot, responding to specific circumstances. Maybe if there were scenes of extraneous character development...
If I am being generous with my reading, I could say that Seed has a decent subtext about mental health, or problems in general. You can't bury or suppress or run away from your issues, you need to confront them before they grow even bigger. The problem with this though, is that a message like this only works well if its tied into a character's arc. I won't spoil anything overtly here, but the main character explicitly doesn't follow this message. It is so infuriating, because his actions are the only thing moving this story forward, but he never learns. He keeps doing the same stupid stuff over and over and over and over and by the end I was screaming at him.
I don't know if this is even worth a mention, but the book is incredibly similar to the horror movie Insidious. Like eerily similar. Like shares some very specific concepts that I haven't really seen in any other media. And Seed came out a year after Insidious did. In fact, Seed owes a lot to the horror movie classics, because it continually steals bits and pieces from each movie. I say steal because there is nothing original here, and its almost always the best moments from those movies.
The book isn't good. This is sad to me because Seed has been on my list for years now. I can't recommend this to anyone.
alice_otaibi's review
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Overall, the story is okay, but I really hated the main character for nothing he did made sense.
The ending is not my favourite, but it's the usual standard "horror movie ending".
The ending is not my favourite, but it's the usual standard "horror movie ending".
ki31's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
moscheid's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
sayu_reads's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0