Reviews

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle

johnarcist's review

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

lindseyllado's review

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A

3.0

kathleenes's review against another edition

3.0

It was very hard to follow. Darnielle is a good writer but this one didn’t grab me and it confused me throughout. 

grouchomarxist's review

5.0

Placeholder review. More to come. I could not put it down, for real. I mean, I'd read the troubleshooting manual for a garbage disposal if Darnielle wrote it. but i want to keep thinking over this one.

and not having Goodreads transform my review into the word "Placeho." Seriously? I can't even write the f-word without Apple's autocorrect changing it into "ducking,' but somehow "Placeho" slipped through?

hotj1llypepper's review

reflective slow-paced

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

2.5

This is not a horror novel. Barely even a mystery. This is a winding story about small town Iowa and

one woman's strange coping mechanism for grieving her mother who ran away with a cult 20+ years ago. It never became clear to me why Lisa was kidnapping people (? if thats what she was doing?? still unsure) and then splicing the videos onto random VHS tapes. I never understood why Sarah Jane moved in with her to help. Maybe I missed something bc frankly this book is so boring it's impossible to stay tuned in for every word.

  Frankly I didn't have high hopes after devil house but the allure of analog horror haunted VHS tapes was too strong to pass up. Should have known better

scottjp's review against another edition

5.0

Universal Harvester is a fascinating psychological drama with a baffling mystery attached. Jeremy Heldt is a clerk at a dying video store when customers begin returning tapes and telling him that there is something strange recorded on them. In another time, a mother is seduced away from her family by a religious cult. Above it all, a narrator who seems at times to be more than omniscient. It is a novel that may seem disjointed, but which does all come together in the end, though it does ask for some effort on the readers' part to interpret what they have been given. This is one of the best things I've read in a while; I stayed up late to read it and will likely be thinking about it for some time.

pizzano23's review

medium-paced

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

2.0

rowlfthedog's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

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

2.5

swivelhead's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

I went back and read this after LOVING Darnielle's most recent book Devil House, and was pretty disappointed by Universal Harvester. The premise is interesting, but I doubt I could effectively describe to another person anything about the book past that. The main through-line seems to be yearning for family and the memories of family, especially in small Midwestern communities where the lineage of everyone's movements is endlessly discussed and documented.

The saving grace for me is that the writing and prose in this can be efficiently evocative, saying a lot with a little - particularly with the scenery and the relationships between characters.

But it's disappointing that it's all in service of a muddled mystery. You start getting some answers (not all of them satisfying) near the end with a final perspective switch, and then the book just sort of abruptly ends as it finally starts to feel like it's getting somewhere. Maybe the disappointment is the takeaway? 

sammyisobsessed24's review against another edition

3.0

John Darnielle's writing is, as always, breathtaking. His lyricism as a musician bleeds into his prose, and his depictions of people are always so honest and frank. I adore how he writes people and relationships. But I didn't know what was happening in much of the book. A lot of stuff was unclear, and I might need to read a few summaries to understand it truly. I was a little disappointed by the vagueness and meandering of this book, but I still enjoyed it for John's charms. My feelings are mixed, but it's still a solid 3 - 3.5 from me.