Reviews with content warning for Child abuse - Daisy Darker

Rounded up from 3.5 stars

I really enjoyed this book and found it entertaining, but I do think it could’ve been better. The flashbacks to Daisy’s childhood, while providing some nice context, dragged on a little too much compared to the rushed ending. I understand the author was trying to help us understand the characters and their flaws, but it was so slow and dragged the pace down from the present-day murder mystery chapters. I definitely think we could’ve had quicker summaries of character flaws and used those extra pages at the end of the book.
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The last 40 or so pages felt forced to me, like it was wrapped up a little too perfectly. While I love the twist of Daisy being dead the entire time (I totally had to go back and read some paragraphs!), I didn’t find Trixie’s motive realistic. I’m not sure I find murdering her entire family and turning herself into an underage orphan over a child aunt that died 15 years earlier believable. It just wasn’t compelling enough for me. I wish we had a longer ending and better explanation for Trixie’s motivations and justification. Nana’s made a little more sense to me, but it was still hard to find believable in my opinion.

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dayingst's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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? Yes

3.25

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sophiesometimesreads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

This was an interesting read, and I have some mixed feelings about it. I should preface this by saying the nature of the twist was, unfortunately, spoiled for me by social media the day I started this book so I think I did pick up on some foreshadowing that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise.

The characters were not likeable, even Daisy, who I felt we were supposed to sympathise with, I didn’t really connect with or feel much for. This is not necessarily a problem, but I just didn’t feel like I connected with these characters one way or the other.

The pacing was a bit all over the place and I felt like it dragged in places to just have the chapter end on a “cliffhanger” that was resolved early in the next chapter in a way that was kind of anti-climatic.

The twist was interesting and different to what I’ve seen before but I felt like some of the foreshadowing was a bit too obvious in some places. Even though I did know the nature of this twist, I felt like it was mentioned enough times I would’ve picked up on some of it had I not know. It wasn’t very subtle about some of it, either.

For example, everyone outright ignored everything she said and the number of times it was explicitly stated that she was ignored made it kind of obvious something was up. And there was a large focus on death and ghosts throughout the book, as well.

Overall, I had a decent time reading this but I don’t think it’s a very memorable thriller for me; however, I do intend on reading more of Alice Feeney’s books.

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zalouis's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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theimposter's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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aileron's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

2.5

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tharumi's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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tylerrose15161's review against another edition

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I love murder mystery books, but my god was this difficult to get into and couldn't hold my attention. The pace and the tone of the book/narration was so slow and dragged on. The thing I disliked the most was that the main character Daisy, whose POV you stay locked into throughout the book, she repeatedly states that "she has a secret" and other ominous claims that her family has holes in them, they're not what they appear to be, etcetera etcetera. Which normally wouldn't be an issue, but when these statements get repeated 10 times within the first 4 chapters, it no longer builds suspense for the reader. Instead it gives off the same energy as someone who posts on social media that they've had a bad day and when someone reaches out to ask if they're okay, they respond saying they don't want to talk about it. So it's extremely annoying.

I ended up reading a summary breakdown of the book instead of actually reading it because of these reasons. And even going through the breakdown, I was still left uninterested.

As for the ending of the book, it did manage to surprise me by revealing a plot twist that I wasn't expecting. But at the same time, it wasn't enough to redeem the book itself. It left me with the feeling of "that's it?".

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