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3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Kind of a slog. There’s a lot of fatphobia in this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Gore, Pedophilia
Moderate: Body horror, Self harm
Minor: Violence, Pandemic/Epidemic
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
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:
Yes
The beginning was intriguing, the plot was set out interestingly enough, but I found the story fell flat very fast and I honestly skipped through the last 30 pages or so. The ending was ambiguous and I felt disappointed.
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
I would say it's 3.5 stars, but even though I enjoyed this book for being exactly what I was looking for, I just can't give it a 4 star rating. It's fun, page-turning, atmospheric dread. Very VERY much like The Thing, I'm surprised that's not written all over the cover.
I had a hard time caring about the characters, is the thing. I guess I liked Luke fine? But I would have liked to
Also, I REALLY wanted to know more about the 'Gets! That's an interesting premise. More, please.
Ultimately, it's a fun psychological horror. It would have been difficult to disappoint me, since I already want to run screaming from anything involving the Mariana Trench.
I had a hard time caring about the characters, is the thing. I guess I liked Luke fine? But I would have liked to
Spoiler
learn more about what ACTUALLY happened to his son. Obviously he was taken by the Fig Men, but...killed? kept away somewhere? And if stored away for that exact moment of reunion, then why was it NOT his son? I think the actual meeting of the fig men was too nebulous, after 400 pages of details of what they are capable of. Describe them more! It felt a little like a cop-out, the ending.Also, I REALLY wanted to know more about the 'Gets! That's an interesting premise. More, please.
Ultimately, it's a fun psychological horror. It would have been difficult to disappoint me, since I already want to run screaming from anything involving the Mariana Trench.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
2/5
The short, non spoilery section: The book feels poorly put together, which is a shame, because both the prose and the setting are really well done. But the plot, while not exactly falling apart, just lacks the proper... setup to make the scenes work well one after the other. Can't say much more without spoilers. But I am pretty disappointed with this one.
The main one, the story sets you up to be bored. What do I mean by that? There are many, many, many dream and flashback sequences in this book. Some of these feel relevant at first, since they are about the abuse the protagonist, Luke, suffered at the hands of his mother and brother as a kid. And those are fine, it's good character building and all. But the ones with superonatural elements feel... well, useless, even wasteful, BECAUSE WE ONLY LEARN THOSE ARE TRUE AT THE END OF THE BOOK.
Compare it, for example, to Stephen King's IT. In that book, we know Pennywise is real, we know it's hunting the kids and we know they were in actual danger. Here, we only find that the things are real at the very last chapter. So every scary visual or flashback feels wasted and shoehorned in to add spooky imagery and maybe symbolize the characters are going insane.
And then a lot of the characters just feel wasted. Take Clayton, Luke's brother, for example. At the end of the day, he was raped by his own mother and eventually slowly poisoned her, but that's described as sort of an isolated event. The other things about him: his apparent sociopathy, his willingness to torture animals, are never correlated to that at all.
And the atmosphere is far too dark. There's no goodness to be held onto in this world, which is something this lacks in comparison to King's worlds imo. When all is bad, the badness just... doesn't feel quite as relevant.
So, for this whole book, I kept feeling like it could've been much much better with some subtle changes. Point out the magic/demon stuff at the start, even if just pointing it out, so we actually wonder if THERE ARE demons or ghosts. Make Clayton a more complicated figure, maybe make him care on some level about Luke and make Luke only find it out at the end of the story, something like that.
At the level it is right know, this book is just... mediocre. Close to being good, but at the same time very very far away.
The short, non spoilery section: The book feels poorly put together, which is a shame, because both the prose and the setting are really well done. But the plot, while not exactly falling apart, just lacks the proper... setup to make the scenes work well one after the other. Can't say much more without spoilers. But I am pretty disappointed with this one.
Spoiler
So, let's start with the basics. This book feels very much inspired by Stephen King's work and the movie Event Horizon. But it... just can't really make it work, for the following reasons:The main one, the story sets you up to be bored. What do I mean by that? There are many, many, many dream and flashback sequences in this book. Some of these feel relevant at first, since they are about the abuse the protagonist, Luke, suffered at the hands of his mother and brother as a kid. And those are fine, it's good character building and all. But the ones with superonatural elements feel... well, useless, even wasteful, BECAUSE WE ONLY LEARN THOSE ARE TRUE AT THE END OF THE BOOK.
Compare it, for example, to Stephen King's IT. In that book, we know Pennywise is real, we know it's hunting the kids and we know they were in actual danger. Here, we only find that the things are real at the very last chapter. So every scary visual or flashback feels wasted and shoehorned in to add spooky imagery and maybe symbolize the characters are going insane.
And then a lot of the characters just feel wasted. Take Clayton, Luke's brother, for example. At the end of the day, he was raped by his own mother and eventually slowly poisoned her, but that's described as sort of an isolated event. The other things about him: his apparent sociopathy, his willingness to torture animals, are never correlated to that at all.
And the atmosphere is far too dark. There's no goodness to be held onto in this world, which is something this lacks in comparison to King's worlds imo. When all is bad, the badness just... doesn't feel quite as relevant.
So, for this whole book, I kept feeling like it could've been much much better with some subtle changes. Point out the magic/demon stuff at the start, even if just pointing it out, so we actually wonder if THERE ARE demons or ghosts. Make Clayton a more complicated figure, maybe make him care on some level about Luke and make Luke only find it out at the end of the story, something like that.
At the level it is right know, this book is just... mediocre. Close to being good, but at the same time very very far away.