Reviews tagging 'Mass/school shootings'

The Call by Peadar Ó Guilín

1 review

ribbenkast's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional informative tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Immediately, I was very interested by the premise of this book. Right from the start, although the subject matter is quite dark I was having so much fun reading it. However the book took a little while to convince me it was not only fun but also clever and good. The ending was worth it though.

The premise: 25 years ago Ireland got cut off from the rest of the world and now every teenager at one point in their live gets "called" and transported to the Grey Land/the fae realm where they have to survive being hunted for sport by vengeful sadistic Sìdhe/fae is amazing. This premise has also major implications for how society will shape itself around this conundrum. A good example is that we follow a physically disabled main character who got polio as a young child because there weren't any vaccines. That's good world building and I'm so happy to read some good disability rep.

This is also where the book gets a little bit frustrating sometimes. You can tell O'Guilan is a good world builder. I'm willing to bet they've written up a Lore Bible and a many page document about the history of the Sìdhe and how the Irish society and its politics as it's currently functioning within the book. However all this clever world building is mostly hidden within throwaway lines from random characters in favor of showing of the teen drama. 

The book has some of the most creative body horror I've seen in a while. However, in a lot cases the scene fades to black to soon. Afterwards the body horror is only described as "terrible" by the other characters without further details. I understand that the author was probably going for "nothing's worse than your own imagination" trope, but I do think O'Guilan missed and excellent opportunity to show just how sadistic and twisted the Sìdhe are. 

Both of these issues could've been resolved by making the book 30-50 pages longer. And I would've gladly read it. I'm picking up part 2 soon. 7.8/10 - 4/5⭐

P.S. It's horror, please check the trigger warnings and take care of yourself! 

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