Reviews - The Shutouts | The StoryGraph

271 reviews for:

The Shutouts

Gabrielle Korn

3.9 AVERAGE

spaceodditee's review

4.0

Oof, I wish I didn't find certain aspects of this so believable.

jpall's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

sabzidyke's review

4.5

adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing tense medium-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: No

bdowdy615's review

3.5

challenging medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

alr16's review

3.5

adventurous emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I like this story and the depth it adds to the world. However, I think this story would've been much stronger if it had been a truly prequel that tad taken us through the events of Kelly's life chronologically and lingered on the skipped over years longer. I think the split POVs with the time spent with our characters from the previous book takes away from all of their endings, particularly Ava's. If we were going to do a split POV with anyone, it should've been Max,

and we should've followed their life, and their escape should've been at the end, where we could see them meet up with Camilla & co.

All in all I think this is a really interesting expansion on a lot of the implications made in the previous book. Just like in that book, there was just too much going on to fully appreciate any of it.

_desireeceleste_'s review against another edition

3.5

My big issue with this books was how many storylines/ perspectives we had and how difficult it was to decipher one from the other for about 2/3 the book. The final third I was able to tell the voices apart and enjoy the book more. I didn’t realize this was the second in a series until after I’d read it, but I wonder if starting with book 1 would have alleviated that issue for me. Otherwise, I enjoyed the storyline and characters, I just wish there was more focus on current era world building. What are the politics of the current era in the book? Coming after recently reading Parable of the Sower, this book felt lacking in details of the bigger picture.

Spoilers because I love spoilers:

I would like to have learned more about Orchid’s life post her father receiving the letters from her mother, warning of the climate crisis. We see Orchid being such a pivotal part of her encampment group but how did she get there? And you may say, ‘that’s covered in book one,’ but this is a stand alone book too and should read as such. I also would like to have seen Alma and Brooke living in the commune instead of hearing about it, like how we got to meet Max while they were living in the commune. It lends depth to the setting.