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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
Well, this was fun! Very slow, but fun nevertheless! I have given it 4/5 stars, but it's closer to 4.5 I'd say.
This is one of the most atmospheric books I have read in a while. The main character is relatable and believable. Of course the book is overly descriptive and could easily cut 100 pages and the story wouldn't be affected, but still I enjoyed it and will definitely be reading the second book in the series too!
This is one of the most atmospheric books I have read in a while. The main character is relatable and believable. Of course the book is overly descriptive and could easily cut 100 pages and the story wouldn't be affected, but still I enjoyed it and will definitely be reading the second book in the series too!
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:
No
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Deaf reader reviewing books with deaf characters.
Overall, this is a good, if wishy-washy, representation of an oral deaf woman who uses hearing aids. Dean, a hearing author, acknowledges @DeafGirly for expert feedback.
A lot of it is super accurate, especially the technical and mundane details surrounding the aids themselves, but some things strike me as off or unrealistic, like putting aids on before taking a shower. (But in other places, it’s the correct way around.) It kind of flip-flops between “yes, that’s true” and “um, what?” for me.
Tuva wears hearing aids, which are realistic and have batteries that actually deplete and die. She has 10% residual hearing in left ear. This is profound deafness, a 90 dB hearing loss. This means that even with amplification, speech is difficult or impossible to understand. She can sense voices but not make out direction or words. But then she puts her left aid on and can suddenly understand the words and direction of voice. Less realistic. How much residual hearing in right ear?
Tuva has the truck radio on low and seems to be able to understand the staticky news, even though she apparently needed to lipread Lena to understand her. She also has no problem having a conversation in a truck while driving in the dark. She generally holds phone conversations with no issue whatsoever. Tuva is explicitly speechreading reliant for face-to-face interactions. So why can she apparently follow news on the radio and refer to recordings on her phone?
Her aids have Bluetooth capability, but this doesn't explain why she understands phone conversations, as at one point Tuva called and *then* remembered to even turn her aids on. She does have trouble hearing her mother with the Bluetooth, but it seems to be due to entering a low-reception zone.
With her aids, Tuva can hear a bell ringing, which sounds like glass breaking. So the aids do give her full hearing, which is simply not real. It occurs to me that her hearing loss is lower range rather than upper. Maybe that’s why she hears the high pitches so painfully.
Later it's clear that without aids Tuva can sense someone speaking but can’t make out words. Putting far too much faith in those aids, and confirming my suspicion throughout the novel that the aids are giving her virtually full hearing, rendering her deafness moot.
The distant hum of a piercing alarm is “just detectable” in unaided ears. I think I understand what he is trying to describe but “hum” isn’t the word I would use, as I don’t think she would necessarily perceive it as sound. In my experience of the audiologist booth, the highest and loudest were always felt as a sort of almost-painful pressure. Just on the threshold of causing pain, if that makes sense. If I had to put a word to the experience I would probably use “pulsate,” which evokes more senses than sound.
Viggo is shouting at her but she apparently couldn’t hear a single bit of it, which is strange if she’s able to sense the alarm without her aids. And instead of saying she can’t hear to someone she’s already spent quite a while conversing with in a previous encounter, she shakes her head and points to her ears. And with her shoes off, wouldn’t she have felt his footsteps approaching? Unless there’s carpeting, can’t remember. But it doesn’t seem like Viggo was trying to sneak up on her.
So she couldn’t hear someone screaming at her in a silent house but can perfectly understand someone speaking behind her in a loud strip club? Regardless of whether her aids are on, this is just…um. But then she can’t understand someone speaking face-to-face.
You see? It flip-flops.
A few more points:
-Lena doesn’t think of Tuva as a deaf person, which Tuva “loves” her for. Errrrr…This rubs me the wrong way. People who don't think of me as deaf are the ones who actually forget I have accessibility needs, which makes it harder to communicate. Probably what Tuva loves her for is that Lena doesn't treat her like an idiot?
-Tuva often looks at her Dictaphone. No transcription is referenced, and it’s just a voice recording device, so I don’t really understand what’s going on here. Maybe she's just making sure it's on? Maybe she has someone who listens to them and transcribes them later on for her, but this is never referenced, and she's also never noted to be playing back any recordings for work. So I don't understand what the big deal is with her need to record everything.
-Some good stuff: Tuva is clumsy and noisy making her way through the woods, and Tuva had years of hellish speech therapy—bonus point!
-Tuva speechreads perfectly in a stressful situation. To be fair, they’re speaking calmly while facing her, but I'm a little iffy on this.
The representation could have been more consistent and accurate, but these are usually not horribly noticeable or egregious.
This book is listed on my ranked list of books with deaf characters: https://slacowan.com/2023/01/14/ranked-deaf-characters-in-fiction.
Overall, this is a good, if wishy-washy, representation of an oral deaf woman who uses hearing aids. Dean, a hearing author, acknowledges @DeafGirly for expert feedback.
A lot of it is super accurate, especially the technical and mundane details surrounding the aids themselves, but some things strike me as off or unrealistic, like putting aids on before taking a shower. (But in other places, it’s the correct way around.) It kind of flip-flops between “yes, that’s true” and “um, what?” for me.
Tuva wears hearing aids, which are realistic and have batteries that actually deplete and die. She has 10% residual hearing in left ear. This is profound deafness, a 90 dB hearing loss. This means that even with amplification, speech is difficult or impossible to understand. She can sense voices but not make out direction or words. But then she puts her left aid on and can suddenly understand the words and direction of voice. Less realistic. How much residual hearing in right ear?
Tuva has the truck radio on low and seems to be able to understand the staticky news, even though she apparently needed to lipread Lena to understand her. She also has no problem having a conversation in a truck while driving in the dark. She generally holds phone conversations with no issue whatsoever. Tuva is explicitly speechreading reliant for face-to-face interactions. So why can she apparently follow news on the radio and refer to recordings on her phone?
Her aids have Bluetooth capability, but this doesn't explain why she understands phone conversations, as at one point Tuva called and *then* remembered to even turn her aids on. She does have trouble hearing her mother with the Bluetooth, but it seems to be due to entering a low-reception zone.
With her aids, Tuva can hear a bell ringing, which sounds like glass breaking. So the aids do give her full hearing, which is simply not real. It occurs to me that her hearing loss is lower range rather than upper. Maybe that’s why she hears the high pitches so painfully.
Later it's clear that without aids Tuva can sense someone speaking but can’t make out words. Putting far too much faith in those aids, and confirming my suspicion throughout the novel that the aids are giving her virtually full hearing, rendering her deafness moot.
The distant hum of a piercing alarm is “just detectable” in unaided ears. I think I understand what he is trying to describe but “hum” isn’t the word I would use, as I don’t think she would necessarily perceive it as sound. In my experience of the audiologist booth, the highest and loudest were always felt as a sort of almost-painful pressure. Just on the threshold of causing pain, if that makes sense. If I had to put a word to the experience I would probably use “pulsate,” which evokes more senses than sound.
Viggo is shouting at her but she apparently couldn’t hear a single bit of it, which is strange if she’s able to sense the alarm without her aids. And instead of saying she can’t hear to someone she’s already spent quite a while conversing with in a previous encounter, she shakes her head and points to her ears. And with her shoes off, wouldn’t she have felt his footsteps approaching? Unless there’s carpeting, can’t remember. But it doesn’t seem like Viggo was trying to sneak up on her.
So she couldn’t hear someone screaming at her in a silent house but can perfectly understand someone speaking behind her in a loud strip club? Regardless of whether her aids are on, this is just…um. But then she can’t understand someone speaking face-to-face.
You see? It flip-flops.
A few more points:
-Lena doesn’t think of Tuva as a deaf person, which Tuva “loves” her for. Errrrr…This rubs me the wrong way. People who don't think of me as deaf are the ones who actually forget I have accessibility needs, which makes it harder to communicate. Probably what Tuva loves her for is that Lena doesn't treat her like an idiot?
-Tuva often looks at her Dictaphone. No transcription is referenced, and it’s just a voice recording device, so I don’t really understand what’s going on here. Maybe she's just making sure it's on? Maybe she has someone who listens to them and transcribes them later on for her, but this is never referenced, and she's also never noted to be playing back any recordings for work. So I don't understand what the big deal is with her need to record everything.
-Some good stuff: Tuva is clumsy and noisy making her way through the woods, and Tuva had years of hellish speech therapy—bonus point!
-Tuva speechreads perfectly in a stressful situation. To be fair, they’re speaking calmly while facing her, but I'm a little iffy on this.
The representation could have been more consistent and accurate, but these are usually not horribly noticeable or egregious.
This book is listed on my ranked list of books with deaf characters: https://slacowan.com/2023/01/14/ranked-deaf-characters-in-fiction.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is a book that has been on my TBR for a couple of years. Ever since I read and loved Dean's The Last Thing To Burn in 2021 and realized Dark Pines featured a deaf main character, I wanted to read this debut by this British author who lives deep in a Swedish forest.
Dean draws on his experiences living in a remote area of Sweden and has set his debut novel in a small isolated town on the edge of a vast Swedish forest which gives this book a wonderful eerie and atmospheric setting. Tuva Moodyson is a deaf woman who is new to town, the proverbial 'fish out of water' and when a violent murder occurs that is reminiscent of a murder spree years prior, Tuva sees it as an opportunity to make a name for herself as a journalist.
This slow burn Nordic Noir mystery has an interesting secondary cast and a bunch of potential culprits who are an eccentric bunch with a creepy flair. The premise is strong, but I easily predicted the identity of the murderer and would have loved a few more twists. I also wish less time was spent on issues that didn't propel the story - like reminding readers that Tuva is deaf, detailing the many times she changed her hearing aid batteries and her numerous trips back and forth to the hamlet deep in the Utgard forest.
I wanted to love Tuva, but she didn't win me over and I couldn't take her seriously as a journalist. She's curious and eager, but she's more impetuous than she is skilled as a journalist, continually making silly choices that put her in danger. Dean attempts to humanize her with her complicated relationship with her mother, but it felt extraneous and was largely ignored.
This debut had all the fixings for a great, eerie mystery - dark woods, bodies piling up and oddball, creepy culprits. I loved the sinister feel with descriptions of the backwoods and the small, insular community on its edge, but overall, it fell a bit short in my expectations. I'm glad to have finally read this book and to see how far Dean's writing has progressed in his later books.
4.5* --> 5*
I can’t quite explain where my recent fascination with Scandi-Noir comes from. For one, I absolutely hate cold weather and the mere mention of freezing temperatures and snow makes me want to run for the hills. And yet, when one of my dearest blogging friends couldn’t stop raving about Dark Pines, I dived right in and didn’t look back.
Tuva Moodyson is a journalist, working for the local newspaper in the tiny town of Gavrik. When a body is found in the forest, Tuva sets out to investigate the story that could make her career. But there is a fine line between telling the story truthfully and not alienating the community you live in. On top of that, Tuva must face her biggest fears and head deep into the dark woods.
There’s an incredibly threatening and claustrophobic vibe running throughout this entire story. It doesn’t just come from the small town feeling, but also the forest, which is almost a character all on its own, and the residents themselves. Each and every one of them is a suspect in this murder and I probably pointed my finger at all of them. From the massively creepy woodcarving sisters, to the ghostwriter in his fancy house, to the taxi driver with his slightly odd son, each and every one of them displays a certain level of eccentricity that made me eye them in the most suspicious way. I can’t even begin to explain how much I love it when an author can keep me guessing.
Everything in Dark Pines works like a charm. The atmospheric setting, the weather and our main character being deaf adds another brilliantly intricate layer. I loved how Tuva doesn’t make a big deal of her deafness. It’s just a part of her, like the colour of her eyes. I can’t for the life of me imagine what it’s like, thankfully, but I feel the author did a great job incorporating it into the storyline. Especially by explaining how certain sounds can interfere with hearing aids. I had no idea.
The investigation into the murder is utterly gripping. Will Dean will have you second-guessing everyone and everything at every single turn of the page. Just when I thought I figured out the who, there was a curveball. And I completely gave up on figuring out the why but the reveal blew me away. Fantastic!
So, a brilliantly executed plot, an extremely interesting protagonist, a cast of fabulous if slightly weird characters and an amazing setting. What more could you possibly want? Scandi-Noir has completely won me over and Will Dean is most definitely one to watch. I have no doubt Dark Pines will do well and it’s kicking off the new year in style!
I can’t quite explain where my recent fascination with Scandi-Noir comes from. For one, I absolutely hate cold weather and the mere mention of freezing temperatures and snow makes me want to run for the hills. And yet, when one of my dearest blogging friends couldn’t stop raving about Dark Pines, I dived right in and didn’t look back.
Tuva Moodyson is a journalist, working for the local newspaper in the tiny town of Gavrik. When a body is found in the forest, Tuva sets out to investigate the story that could make her career. But there is a fine line between telling the story truthfully and not alienating the community you live in. On top of that, Tuva must face her biggest fears and head deep into the dark woods.
There’s an incredibly threatening and claustrophobic vibe running throughout this entire story. It doesn’t just come from the small town feeling, but also the forest, which is almost a character all on its own, and the residents themselves. Each and every one of them is a suspect in this murder and I probably pointed my finger at all of them. From the massively creepy woodcarving sisters, to the ghostwriter in his fancy house, to the taxi driver with his slightly odd son, each and every one of them displays a certain level of eccentricity that made me eye them in the most suspicious way. I can’t even begin to explain how much I love it when an author can keep me guessing.
Everything in Dark Pines works like a charm. The atmospheric setting, the weather and our main character being deaf adds another brilliantly intricate layer. I loved how Tuva doesn’t make a big deal of her deafness. It’s just a part of her, like the colour of her eyes. I can’t for the life of me imagine what it’s like, thankfully, but I feel the author did a great job incorporating it into the storyline. Especially by explaining how certain sounds can interfere with hearing aids. I had no idea.
The investigation into the murder is utterly gripping. Will Dean will have you second-guessing everyone and everything at every single turn of the page. Just when I thought I figured out the who, there was a curveball. And I completely gave up on figuring out the why but the reveal blew me away. Fantastic!
So, a brilliantly executed plot, an extremely interesting protagonist, a cast of fabulous if slightly weird characters and an amazing setting. What more could you possibly want? Scandi-Noir has completely won me over and Will Dean is most definitely one to watch. I have no doubt Dark Pines will do well and it’s kicking off the new year in style!
A very atmospheric and tense first in series thriller set in a remote Swedish town with a very oppressive forest as character of it's own. The lead character Tuva is a reporter newly arrived on the local paper when a body is found whose injuries mirror those of a series of murders 20 years earlier. Tuva is deaf and this aspect of her character adds to the jeopardy as she is constantly one step ahead of the police which of course raises the question of who is watching her. A real page turner.