Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
dark
tense
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A unique premise drives this extraordinary novella. Every time Molly Southbourne bleeds, a new 'molly' is created, and it tries to kill Molly. Despite the brutality, this is often a tender book. Molly is a compelling character, not simply because of her fascinating 'affliction' but because she navigates through life with a refreshing honesty. This honesty is partly the result of 'inappropriateness' brought about by a necessarily sheltered upbringing, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that having to live with such an enormous secret makes honesty (often brutal honesty) and openness a matter of psychological survival. I've already picked up the sequel: [b:The Survival of Molly Southbourne|43459663|The Survival of Molly Southbourne (Molly Southbourne, #2)|Tade Thompson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1561614253l/43459663._SY75_.jpg|58049973].
I really enjoyed the imaginitive premise in this novella. Everytime Molly bleeds, a new Molly appears that she must kill before it kills her. I thought this had a great mix of horror and science fiction with some genuinely creepy parts.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Don’t bleed.
I really enjoyed this, and despite it only being a novella I found the story incredibly well written and unique in its concepts.
Ever since she can remember Molly has watched herself die, hundreds of times. Whenever she bleeds, a ‘molly’ is born. Her twin in every way. Except all the mollys want to do is kill Molly. And as she grows, the mollys do too - and they get better at fighting back.
I’m amazed at how much detail the author managed to pack into this novella. Molly is a deeply complex, intelligent character with a rich background. I warmed to her plight immediately, and enjoyed the relationship she shares with her parents, as they fight to preserve her secret, and later with the people she meets at college. I thought she was well developed, and in essence also deeply flawed. I’ve never really read a character quite like her, and I loved her for it. Her emotion, or lack thereof, at certain points throughout the story really appealed to me. Her parents come across as deeply loving and obviously protective of Molly, yet also allow her a certain degree of independence in a world which would never accept her if they knew what Molly was capable of.
The plot itself is also extremely interesting. Molly’s exploration into why she can produce the ‘mollys’ was great, and the fast pace kept me entertained right until the end. Although wrapped up well, there were also several points hinted at near the end of the story that were left unanswered, and if the author so desired, I would love to see Molly again and learn about the wider world in which she inhabits.
Don’t bleed.
I really enjoyed this, and despite it only being a novella I found the story incredibly well written and unique in its concepts.
Ever since she can remember Molly has watched herself die, hundreds of times. Whenever she bleeds, a ‘molly’ is born. Her twin in every way. Except all the mollys want to do is kill Molly. And as she grows, the mollys do too - and they get better at fighting back.
I’m amazed at how much detail the author managed to pack into this novella. Molly is a deeply complex, intelligent character with a rich background. I warmed to her plight immediately, and enjoyed the relationship she shares with her parents, as they fight to preserve her secret, and later with the people she meets at college. I thought she was well developed, and in essence also deeply flawed. I’ve never really read a character quite like her, and I loved her for it. Her emotion, or lack thereof, at certain points throughout the story really appealed to me. Her parents come across as deeply loving and obviously protective of Molly, yet also allow her a certain degree of independence in a world which would never accept her if they knew what Molly was capable of.
The plot itself is also extremely interesting. Molly’s exploration into why she can produce the ‘mollys’ was great, and the fast pace kept me entertained right until the end. Although wrapped up well, there were also several points hinted at near the end of the story that were left unanswered, and if the author so desired, I would love to see Molly again and learn about the wider world in which she inhabits.
The Murders of Molly Southbourne is a slim little book that packs a punch. The book's incredible premise is well-executed. The book conveys so much with so little: it is moving and shocking and well worth the time it will take to read it.
One small note - which will be either good or bad depending on your perspective - is that the book leaves a lot of unexplored areas. The book could have easily been longer without becoming overbearing, and yet I'm happy that Thompson didn't overextend the story and reach for too much.
One small note - which will be either good or bad depending on your perspective - is that the book leaves a lot of unexplored areas. The book could have easily been longer without becoming overbearing, and yet I'm happy that Thompson didn't overextend the story and reach for too much.
A near-enough future novella that blends the horror inherent in a mutating, collapsing Earth and the human response to it with the species-level will to live no matter what.
I was utterly sucked into the narrative early on:
I'm not going to tell you what mollys are because this is a very difficult concept to get across. I want the whole reading experience to be as full and rich for you as it was for me. And I want to encourage you to spend $3.99 on a novella of surpassing strangeness, violence, and transcendent oddness.
What isn't odd, though sometimes is transcendent, is Author Tade's writing. He finds angles and corners where others don't look, or if they look don't see.
With the exception of one, and only one, hideous and disfiguring instance of the w-bomb, the text is chillingly, even eerily, smooth and flawless. It resembles in its affect the narrative monologues of Rod Serling. You know the point is there, you can see it rising like the number Pi above foggy lowlands of text, but it shifts and your gaze has to slip away from it as you negotiate the steps of the ziggurat.
Climb, I urge you; the view is fine and the journey's toll is just the beginning of a quest.
I was utterly sucked into the narrative early on:
An example has aspects of a thing, but is that the thing itself? The mollys have aspects of Molly, but that doesn't make them Molly, does it?
I'm not going to tell you what mollys are because this is a very difficult concept to get across. I want the whole reading experience to be as full and rich for you as it was for me. And I want to encourage you to spend $3.99 on a novella of surpassing strangeness, violence, and transcendent oddness.
What isn't odd, though sometimes is transcendent, is Author Tade's writing. He finds angles and corners where others don't look, or if they look don't see.
Her shoes wait in formation for her feet to quicken them.
***
Alarms are going off like the mating calls of robotic insects.
***
As she cuts the cadavers on the slabs, she realizes there is no sense to be made out of life.
With the exception of one, and only one, hideous and disfiguring instance of the w-bomb, the text is chillingly, even eerily, smooth and flawless. It resembles in its affect the narrative monologues of Rod Serling. You know the point is there, you can see it rising like the number Pi above foggy lowlands of text, but it shifts and your gaze has to slip away from it as you negotiate the steps of the ziggurat.
Climb, I urge you; the view is fine and the journey's toll is just the beginning of a quest.
Sometimes novellas feel full and complete in their worlds. My only complaint about this book is that it tries to expand its world and it ends up feeling slight.
Which is too bad, because this is a horror story that is well told, violent and disturbing and I wanted it to be amazing in every way.
Still worth a read. I've liked everything I've read of Thompson, this fits nicely in there.
Which is too bad, because this is a horror story that is well told, violent and disturbing and I wanted it to be amazing in every way.
Still worth a read. I've liked everything I've read of Thompson, this fits nicely in there.
I almost never read horror, but got this book for free from the Tor.com eBook of the Month Club and steeled myself to check it out. It freaked me the *fuck* out. Which, I suppose, is the point of horror? I am too delicate for this genre lol.
I love the novella length. This is a pretty short novella, and was easy to read in one sitting. I was surprised by how fast it went, in fact--in a lot of ways this felt like reading a short story.
As for the type of horror, it's mostly psychological. There's some gore, dismemberment of bodies and fight scenes, but the really impactful stuff, for me, was the mollys who weren't just all about violent, bloody death, but were conversationalists instead. That was creepy as shit.
I like the central conceit--the idea of the self being overtaken by other versions of the same self. If I have one complaint about the book, in fact, it was that (spoiler) the ending felt pretty low impact to me because there are hints dropped throughout the narrative that suggest that it's not the first time a molly has replaced the 'original' Molly. Before I got to the end, I was pretty sure that it had happened before, and she just hadn't remembered accurately--which was part of the horror, I thought. Looking back, it's possible that this wasn't what was actually happening, but the impression of it was certainly there. So the idea of the old self cooperating with the replacement was the only new part, and the ending was a little anticlimactic.
Relatedly, I wish I understood more clearly why Molly found herself so suicidal by the end. I mean, okay, killing yourself over and over could certainly acclimate you to the idea of killing yourself. It just didn't feel like the end of the story, to me--it felt like the time you look back on, and laugh about cynically over beer with friends because, as Robin Eames says, "when you get to/ that point you have to either laugh or just/ fucking kill yourself & I already tried that/ & it didn’t work out, so, this is where I live now."
So anyway the moral of the story is, I don't really read horror because I'm the sort to laugh instead of kill myself. But if you read horror you will probably like this one, and even if you don't read horror you should absolutely check out the Book of the Month Club offered by Tor.com because they've offered a wide variety of fantastic books--I recently read Witchmark by CL Polk, which was a book of the month also, and really enjoyed it.
I love the novella length. This is a pretty short novella, and was easy to read in one sitting. I was surprised by how fast it went, in fact--in a lot of ways this felt like reading a short story.
As for the type of horror, it's mostly psychological. There's some gore, dismemberment of bodies and fight scenes, but the really impactful stuff, for me, was the mollys who weren't just all about violent, bloody death, but were conversationalists instead. That was creepy as shit.
I like the central conceit--the idea of the self being overtaken by other versions of the same self. If I have one complaint about the book, in fact, it was that (spoiler) the ending felt pretty low impact to me because there are hints dropped throughout the narrative that suggest that it's not the first time a molly has replaced the 'original' Molly. Before I got to the end, I was pretty sure that it had happened before, and she just hadn't remembered accurately--which was part of the horror, I thought. Looking back, it's possible that this wasn't what was actually happening, but the impression of it was certainly there. So the idea of the old self cooperating with the replacement was the only new part, and the ending was a little anticlimactic.
Relatedly, I wish I understood more clearly why Molly found herself so suicidal by the end. I mean, okay, killing yourself over and over could certainly acclimate you to the idea of killing yourself. It just didn't feel like the end of the story, to me--it felt like the time you look back on, and laugh about cynically over beer with friends because, as Robin Eames says, "when you get to/ that point you have to either laugh or just/ fucking kill yourself & I already tried that/ & it didn’t work out, so, this is where I live now."
So anyway the moral of the story is, I don't really read horror because I'm the sort to laugh instead of kill myself. But if you read horror you will probably like this one, and even if you don't read horror you should absolutely check out the Book of the Month Club offered by Tor.com because they've offered a wide variety of fantastic books--I recently read Witchmark by CL Polk, which was a book of the month also, and really enjoyed it.
No era lo que esperaba. Parte de una idea muy guay, pero no esperaba que contara toda la vida de la protagonista. El plot twist final para mí no ha sido tal. Aun así, es ameno y trata varios temas interesantes. Tengo curiosidad por saber qué hará en el próximo
This one was a lot of fun. I'll probably seek out more by this author in the future.