Reviews

The Cipher by Kathe Koja

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futurama1979's review against another edition

4.0

⟶ 4.5/5 stars

I loved this book so much. the writing style is captivating to me. the plunge into strangeness in the body was awesome and when it got cultlike and false idols and the mask on the door my god i love that. the imagery is amazing i can picture every set in the book so photographically clearly and the voice & character of nicholas are very compelling to me. every character is compelling to me & i love the satire it’s so funny & the emphasis on how pathetic and miserable it all is really ups the enjoyability. it’s interesting to observe a guy who clearly in his head cares a lot about almost all the people around him treat them all kind of like shit while physically being taken over by something beyond comprehension in the service closet. kind of spectacular actually. there’s commentary on so much in here & it seemed at the same time fast paced and always something happening and the visuals are just sooo crazy. half point off 'cos the very ending threw me slightly but really i just loved this book. i’m reading skin directly after this .. peace and love

grace_mae's review against another edition

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A little too long but very yucky and I think I liked it

sarah984's review

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challenging dark slow-paced

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

4.0

I've been wanting to read this one for a while and it did not disappoint: nasty characters in nasty situations as everything spins out of control. It got a little repetitive for me near the end and the kindle edition had some annoying OCR errors but overall highly recommended to anyone who likes weird horror.

Content Warnings

mudlizard's review

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dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No

3.0

it took me a bit to get used to the prose but once I got into it it was fun. (I even ended up reading it out loud to myself quite a bit lol.) however this could've been a good chunk shorter and probably would've worked better as a novella or even a short story because it does meander a lot. And even as I got used to the poetic style, there were quite a few moments that were incredibly difficult to parse. There are some really hard hitting moments and some fun dreadful icky gross and cosmic horror that i like. Unfortunately I feel uneasy about some of the typical 90s 'isms, but the way it's written makes the intent hard to pin so... I am curious about Koja's other adult works after this though.

angus_mckeogh's review against another edition

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3.0

I’d put this more in line with a cryptic, mysterious thriller rather than a true horror novel, but it was still plenty entertaining. However, it did drag a little and was left with an ending devoid of any type of excitement or surprise, which had the whole thing finishing like a slow release of breath rather than a shocking bang. Pretty good but not amazing.