Reviews

The Broken Room by Peter Clines

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spookyoh's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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

2.5

First of all, I can’t believe more people haven’t mentioned how…gross this book is. If you don’t like bugs or excessive vomiting, please don’t read it.

**This review will contain spoilers**

The Broken Room started off so strong for me. A girl escaped from a secret project with a ghost in her head? Teams up with an ex-spy who begrudgingly becomes her father figure? This may be a bit of a tired trope but I love it.

And the first 1/3 or so of the book was great! Mysterious, exciting, fast-paced. I’ve seen people complain that Natalie’s retelling of her experience at the Project and leading up to it was boring, but I still found that exciting and suspense-building.

And then the excessive vomiting started.

It was find at first. Her coughing, puking up mucus and then egg sacks. Gross, but not overly so. It was interesting. What was happening? I wanted to know more.

But there first scene where she pukes up “gallons and gallons” of mucus and bugs and literally uses her puking as a weapon? Why?? It was so ridiculous, it almost circled back around to not being gross. How am I supposed to take this seriously when its described as a waterfall of mucus coming out of her mouth? It sounded like something a 12 year old would write to be funny.

And from then on, it only got worse. The book got repetitive. Their cover is blown, they fight their way out, Natalie has an excessive puking episode, they escape. And the BUGS. Ugh. Why? I’ve read my fair share of body horror but the puking combined with the mutant bugs was just too much. It was so overly gross that I almost DNF’d at several points.

And the ending in the broken room? Wading through her own mucus-puke? How much did she puke? Why is this necessary? Like, write whatever you want, but why would anyone write *this*?

The ending itself was fine. I didn’t have any major gripes with it. I wish that Tim was explored more as a character, because then his sacrifice would have been more impactful.

I’ve really enjoyed Peter Cline’s past work, especially 14 and The Fold, but this one just didn’t do it for me.

im_ruth_less's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

andimontgomery's review against another edition

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3.0

This wasn’t as compelling s some of the author’s previous books, and I disliked the political messaging.

pimmles's review against another edition

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3.75

I really enjoy Clines' books. They're easy to read and entertaining. This fit the bill too, but wasn't quite as engaging of some of his other books purely by nature of lacking in some of the more campy horror elements that keep a lot of his other books more engaging.