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3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
--- An ebook received from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review ---
A hundred-odd years ago the whole population of a small mining town disappeared without a trace. A group of modern days explorers go to the ruins to investigate and belatedly realise it was a spectacularly bad idea.
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Blake Crouch's books, because the always gripping story unfortunately comes together with the most paper-thin characters imaginable. This book is above average in this regard though: there was actually one interesting character in one of the two timelines who I genuinely felt for. As for the story - I actually considered missing an appointment one time because I couldn't stop reading.
To sum up, usually when I say "this book was obviously written with a purpose to be picked up for a tv show", it's not a compliment t0 whichever book I review. Not this time though: I'll be eagerly awaiting Abandon tv show, preferable made by HBO, like Deadwood on steroids.
A hundred-odd years ago the whole population of a small mining town disappeared without a trace. A group of modern days explorers go to the ruins to investigate and belatedly realise it was a spectacularly bad idea.
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Blake Crouch's books, because the always gripping story unfortunately comes together with the most paper-thin characters imaginable. This book is above average in this regard though: there was actually one interesting character in one of the two timelines who I genuinely felt for. As for the story - I actually considered missing an appointment one time because I couldn't stop reading.
To sum up, usually when I say "this book was obviously written with a purpose to be picked up for a tv show", it's not a compliment t0 whichever book I review. Not this time though: I'll be eagerly awaiting Abandon tv show, preferable made by HBO, like Deadwood on steroids.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
There’s no supernatural element and I’m not here for human suffering
My audiobook before this took a month to finish, and was really not that good, so this was a fun, fast paced read that helped break my reading funk
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
Two stars because it had me in the first half. There was a sense of claustrophobia and slow, creeping terror that had me hooked despite the meh prose and lackluster characters. Then the whole thing hit a wall. Right around the time the pace should have picked up, it just...didn't. It got very tedious to read because the characters just kept going in circles. They hike around, they search for gold, they don't find it, someone betrays them and/or dies, the cycle repeats. The answer to the mysterious disappearance of the townspeople in 1893 is boring and pretty stupid. The ending is rushed after a plodding middle. There ended up being nothing spooky or creepy about this, just a lot of people getting shot to death. Like, A LOT of people are just gunned down and that's how they die. Boring.