Reviews with content warning for Deadnaming - Thirteen Storeys

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Thirteen Storeys by Jonathan Sims

26 reviews

itsmeautievee's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.5

I really enjoy the authors work on The Magnus Archives, which in my opinion is a faster pace than this book.

The story is good and maybe it was the audio performances that made it difficult for me to listen to.

I enjoyed the story as an Allegory. I don't know that I'd read it again but I did enjoy it and I would recommend it to others.

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nebulous_cat's review

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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casdelvo's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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gagereadsstuff's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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nodustollens's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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rachelunabridged's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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bookcheshirecat's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

4.5

“This world was designed to generate winners and losers, and it showed a lack of character to wish yourselves a winner without accepting what it does to those who lose.”

➽ I can't believe I waited this long to finally read Thirteen Storeys, as it was amazing! I was so excited for Jonathan Sims' debut novel because I loved The Magnus Archive, the podcast he was a writer on. I'm normally not really into Horror but TMA got me super obsessed and I loved the way it was written. Luckily, he's also fantastic at writing novels and just really writes Horror in a way that draws me in. Thirteen Storeys is focused on Banyan Court, a huge complex that was built by the eccentric billionaire Tobias Fell, who has become a hermit and rarely leaves his penthouse anymore. The story starts with a newspaper entry about his sudden death following a dinner party with 12 guests ... who have no idea what happened. We're slowly working our way back by following different people in the weeks leading up to the dinner party and the strange experiences with Banyan Court.

➽ This feels more like an anthology, as every story is about a different character's life and how Banyan Court haunts them in one way or another. Still, after a while you begin to see the connections between the stories and I loved figuring out what was going on! The dinner party itself only happens at the very end, but I personally didn't mind that as the setup was intriguing and gave us some insight into Tobias, his dubious past and the secrets of the building. The people he invites for the party couldn't be more different, as the complex has two sides. One is for the rich people, but the back is hidden away and full of cheap apartments for those who can't afford better. There were so many intriguing stories, we've got a young woman who only works the night shift, a couple horrified by a mysterious stain in their wall that won't come out, a startup CEO whose own technology turns against him and an art collector who gets obsessed with a painting. There was always a sinister undercurrent to the stories, especially when it comes to the concierge who deals with an intense coworker and a plumber who has been noticing that the pipes don't work like they should. Every single story left me intrigued and I'm definitely excited for more books by Jonny!

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msbedelia's review

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dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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sapphic_reader's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

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

3.0

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rainbowalcremie1995's review

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dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

tldr; The real ghosts were the

capitalism

we met along the way.

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this book. I definitely liked it overall, but it took me a while to finish it. I bought the book a few months back, read the first few chapters, put it down for a bit when the pacing got a bit slow, and finally started over and finished the book over the last few weeks.

The fact that the novel consists of twelve different characters’ separate stories that all tie into an overall narrative that concludes in the thirteenth chapter is, in my opinion, both a strength and a weakness. When I was first reading the book, I had a lot of fun getting into the heads of different characters leading vastly different lives from each other. However, since the characters are largely separate from each other until the climax, it also felt like some revelations kept happening over and over. The book is not at all subtle with its anti-capitalist themes, and for certain characters, I felt like their chapters consisted more of reiterating those themes than focusing on the personal story of the character. The middle chapters struggled most with this balance, and was around where I’d taken a break from reading the first time I read this book. However, I feel that the chapters at the beginning and end of the book did a better job of giving its point of view character an actual arc in addition to contributing to the overall plot.

I have two chapters I would consider my favorites. The first is Carter’s chapter, which works as a great standalone story about an awful, awful person becoming a victim to something he created. Something I love about that chapter is that

Donna is basically working as intended and taking over his life, creating someone to be a better person in his place if he won’t do it himself

. I feel like the chapter is even more timely in 2023 than it was in 2020, with ChatGPT and AI generated art being such hot topics. My other favorite chapter is Janek’s. His is closer to the end of the book, so it's more tied to the main plot. I love the imagery of him

breaking into the middle of the building, seeing the pipes inside, and deciding to join the bodies he’d been following

. Another part of the reason I like this chapter is that Janek feels more personally connected to the harm Tobias Fell has caused than some of the other characters.

Janek went through a traumatic work place accident similar to the ones the ghosts he’s following were victims of, and I found that to be a stronger character motivation than the vague concept of people suffering somewhere else.

I feel like the ending of the book wrapped things up a little neatly, but I didn’t mind. I loved the scenes of all these different characters we’ve been in the heads of getting to interact with each other in a strange setting. It might have been sort of anticlimactic and convenient to

have the characters just use the ghosts they’ve been haunted by to each thematically beat Tobias to death, but it was still pretty fun

. As a note, I was reading the ebook version and listening to the audiobook at the same time. I’d purchased both together, but the audiobook’s thirteenth chapter was different than the ebook in that the audiobook was told in present tense instead of past tense, and each character’s narration was in first person. I’m not sure if that change is strictly for the audiobook version or if there’s another ebook edition that also uses those changes. There were a few words and sentences added and subtracted in addition to the tense and POV changes, but overall, there weren’t any story changes, so you won’t be missing anything important regardless of which version you decide to read/listen to.

As a last aside, I (like everyone else) listened to the Magnus Archives podcast sometime before reading this book. I liked the podcast, but I never considered myself a huge fan of it, and I fell behind and never finished it, either. If you’re a big fan of the podcast, though, I will say this book is pretty similar in tone and themes, with both using the real world horrors of capitalism and class divides in addition to the supernatural elements.

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