Reviews

Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham

confidenterr0r's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

The first quarter of the book was fantastic to me. The atmosphere and world building with the growing sense of “something isn’t quite right here” really pulled me in. That’s why I think the entire rest of the book disappointed me so much and fell flat. The 3 main characters were so very dull and dense. At first I thought it was on purpose since the

animals

are very full of personality by comparison but as the book went on…nope. They’re just dull and dense.

They’ll get major context clues that something horrible happened to the animals and they’re all just kinda like “welp. that’s wild.” and keep going. It took them until pretty late story to even fully recognize they’d been brought there against their will, like come on. I didn’t feel like any of the MCs truly acknowledged how their favorite little book was written and either continued idolizing it or just kinda…didn’t say much about it until the very end when Eamon suddenly realizes it in the final showdown with Bing for no particular reason, when he felt seemingly no remorse for the other 3 animals the whole book. By the end of the book I actually couldn’t stand Eamon with his high level plot armor and Christopher Columbus ancestry and watching him win by locking Finn in the same cage his ancestor did was infuriating. I was rooting hard for Eamon to die but that’s neither here nor there lol

I wish the entire middle of the book would’ve been cut down a bit and added more focus on the lore since that’s where the book really seemed to shine. I found the action parts became repetitive and very quickly realized

the 3 MCs were not actually in danger of dying which made that portion drag on for me. They would just run through their major injuries without much hindrance while the animals stood 5 feet away missing every shot.

I do still recommend reading this since the concept itself was unique and the storybook characters were very enjoyable and vibrant. This is definitely an Eamon hate page but I seem to be in the minority so he may not bother you as much lol. The overall story was interesting enough to deal with his mary sue-ness and where Eamon and friends fall flat the storybook characters pick up the slack (ironically).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Genocide, Violence, Blood, Colonisation, and Animal death

shrewdbard's review against another edition

DNF 9 pages in. I’m sorry. I can’t read a whole book if I spend literally every single sentence COPY EDITING!!! Stop with the adverbs!! Learn how commas work!! HIRE AN EDITOR FOR YOUR NEXT SELF PUBLISHING VENTURE 😭😭😭

siriuslyloopy's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

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

3.0

melmmh's review against another edition

5.0

Absolutely phenomenal.
This is definitely going to be one of my favourite reads of 2022.
Super creepy, atmospheric, gripping (not me crying towards the end of the book…)
I’m selfishly wishing for a prequel, but I’m not sure my heart could take it!

anastasia1373's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

1.5

calliek927's review against another edition

2.0

I'm not gonna lie. Jonathan is one of my favorite people in the BOH group on FB, but this one just took FOREVER to reel me in.. and even after I did, I never did get fully invested. The story had a decent premise, but it never connected with me.

The characters travel to the place where their favorite childhood story took place... and then all the things happen... I hate that I didn't love this, but I'm sorry JED, this one just didn't hit where I'd hoped it had.

asktheletters's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

keznix1313's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

endofthelaneway's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

3.0

thepagelady's review against another edition

5.0

ould you imagine if your favorite fantasy book characters came to life?

I’ve been sitting here for the past 45 minutes wondering how to explain this book to you & honestly I still don’t know what to say so I’m just going to say what comes to mind & hope in the end that it will make sense! I don’t think I have ever read anything like this book! This is a wonderful story that draws you in from the beginning & once you start getting farther in & start to pull back the layers you're done you won’t be able to put it down! There are a lot of layers & even something in the background that you aren’t 100 percent sure what it is but you know it's there! Just wow! It’s gripping, dark,suspenseful, haunting, sad & so much more! I really don’t know how to put it into words without giving much away! The author has truly crafted an amazing wonderful book! You’ll jut have to read it & see for yourself!