Reviews

The Murders of Molly Southbourne, by Tade Thompson

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rockinrobin1's review

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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? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

directorpurry's review against another edition

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4.0

CW: gore, death of a child, self-harm, description of a corpse, description of surgery/autopsy,

Spoiler

death of a parent

Basically, don't read this if you're squeamish or easily made uncomfortable.

I didn't think I'd enjoy a blood-bath this much.
Thompson's writing is amazing, provocative and precise; the story itself is fascinating and engaging. For such a short piece, this novella packs a powerful punch and I'm hesitant to write too much on the plot purely because of its length.
If you like vaguely paranormal/sci-fi horror, I highly recommend this one. But it's not for the faint of heart.

bsparks2112's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-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

4.0

I'm pretty impressed by this one. Starting from an intriguing and unsettling premise, I loved the structuring of this short tale and the way it fleshes out a lot of the implications of its main conceit (even the quite unflattering ones). There seems to be a ton of depth behind the characters here, not just the main character (Molly, naturally) but also her parents - there is a satisfying amount of history and buildup to get Molly into the place where she is introduced, and some of the discoveries that are made along her journey land with the nice reveal of a good twist (not to mention being deeply creepy). There is a lot that goes relatively unexplored here - it seems to be saving a lot of stuff for follow-up entries in the novella series, and as a result, it seems almost a little too short for its own good. But one sign of a good story is that it leaves you wanting more, and this one definitely did that. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on more of Thompson's work.

hognob's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

the_bookubus's review against another edition

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3.0

Every time Molly bleeds a duplicate version of her is created which she has to kill before it kills her.

While the concept of this story is brilliant I'm not sure if the story lived up to the concept and I ended up feeling like I wanted to like it more than I actually did. There were times when things didn't really make sense or things felt way too convenient. Also, the storytelling style is told in fragmented vignettes over a period of years which I found made it hard to connect with. These things frequently took me out of the story and I never got fully immersed in it. I wonder if the novella length really works for this story and if it might have worked better as either being stripped down to a short story or further developed into a novel. Even though there were some negative aspects for me there were still elements here that I really liked and I did still enjoy reading it overall so I would try more by this author.