Reviews with content warning for Confinement - Ghost Station

Definitely a slow start, slowed down further by the amount of time that Ophelia spends mooning over Severin*. At almost no point could I take her seriously as a medical professional. But once the horror kicked off, I was still totally sucked in. Ultimately, I wished we could have had more time with

the alien entity

before the book ended.

*I think I jokingly whined to a friend who was also reading this book that it was too heterosexual for me, but it did make me very glad to see queer people included even if just as background characters.

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boogergoddess's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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lahars_little_library's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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bibliomania_express's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-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

4.5

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes is a skin-crawling space horror that delves into the psychological effects of trauma, grief, survivor's guilt, corporate greed, and the unknowable. Ophelia is a psychologist, trained to treat space exploration teams for psychological conditions.

This book has a great blend of science, alien horror, and a creepy, cold isolated setting. Ophelia is wracked with guilt, still carrying trauma from her past, and determined to help this team who absolutely don't want her help.

There are parallels with Barnes's first book, Dead Silence - the isolated setting, the critique of corporate capitalism, the use of auditory and visual hallucinations paired with internal conflicts, the hint of romance. But this book shows that Barnes excels at what she does. I felt Ophelia's fear, paranoia, and her intense longing to help. I understood the team dynamics and what motivated each character. My skin crawled at the whole alien part of it. The worldbuilding felt full while not relying on info dumps.

There are some thing I wish had been expanded on, particularly at the end. The epilogue ends rather abruptly, just to tie up the story, but we don't really get to see the fallout or return to some of the side characters we met at the beginning.

I also wanted a bit more from the team. Obviously, some characters, like Ethan and Birch, are more prominent due to their roles in the story, but the action kicks off rather quickly, so there's not a lot of time to get to know each character before the plot is happening.

Perhaps part of it is that I wanted more answers. I have so many questions about details. I suppose some are unknowable, but I wanted a little more space for the characters to breathe at the end.

If you want a isolated space horror that features discussions of mental health, secrets from the past, dystopian worldbuilding elements, and a fight for survivial (plus literal skin-crawling), you might enjoy this book.

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clairebonney's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Truly never thought I’d read a book about space and enjoy it, but here we are.

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