Reviews

Sundial by Catriona Ward

leesadot's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

rubyeple_y's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

ztroberts0's review

dark emotional tense medium-paced

3.5

sarahmiller's review against another edition

dark reflective tense medium-paced

4.0

ngallion's review against another edition

4.0

There’s a lot to love here. The pacing is perfect and plot threads are woven together just about perfectly. Strange things slowly develop so that you may not even notice them at first, but soon you start making connections and hypotheses between all kinds of things that are going on. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that the ending is quite as satisfying as it could have been. We spend lots of time with the mother and one of the daughters, but significantly less time understanding the motivations of the father. I suppose that means that we should take the things we’re told about him at face value, but this reads in such a way that it seemed almost certain that the mother was an unreliable narrator when, in fact, it seems that was never the author’s intention. All of that knocked this down a bit for me, but I’m still going to be on the lookout for pretty much anything Ward writes moving forward.

laneychaney's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal cruelty, Animal death, Physical abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Drug abuse, Gore, Suicide attempt, Medical content, Violence, Addiction, Death, Child death, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Murder, Infidelity, Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Self harm, and Torture

Minor: Infertility

big1212's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

5.0

ksc2303's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

kingjustiniii's review against another edition

5.0

After reading Last House on Needless Street, Catriona had me conditioned to pay attention to every sentence in her stories and to not trust that everything is what it seems. Once again she managed to surprise me!

Catriona Ward is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, she offers such fresh and vibrant stories with characters with so much depth and nuance to them. She is an so good at pulling back layers of her story to expertly pull off complex twists without making them feel unearned.

mpginter's review

dark mysterious 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

3.75