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carleneb's review against another edition
- 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
4.25
Graphic: Violence and Suicide
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Gun violence, Violence, Cursing, Classism, Child death, Abandonment, Racism, Physical abuse, Lesbophobia, Grief, Gore, Death, and Blood
cady_sass's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
This was SO promising. A hide and seek competition with a potentially sinister backstory, 14 people in a hunger-games style competition to battle to the end for $50k? Set in a creepy, run down amusement park? Sign me up! Also, that cover! 😍
Unfortunately there are just too many characters and all of them lack depth, I couldn’t tell you anything interesting about ANYONE except for Mack, the most primary character, and even her backstory is muddy and doesn’t feel fully fleshed out. Honestly the best part was the ending, and the very last line in the book- “who fucking cares”
Graphic: Gaslighting, Gore, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Child death, and Emotional abuse
patchy_at_best's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Classism, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicide, Gore, and Violence
Minor: Lesbophobia
_egg_wash's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
4.75
Graphic: Child death, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Gore, Grief, Blood, Cursing, Murder, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Alcoholism
Minor: Suicide
jenc's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Death and Suicide
Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Grief, Lesbophobia, Religious bigotry, Blood, Misogyny, and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Body shaming, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Toxic relationship, and Abandonment
vaguely_pink's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Child death, Classism, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Violence
Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, and Racism
Minor: Ableism, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Religious bigotry, and War
connorjdaley's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This is a fourteen person, seven day hide-and-seek competition. Two people can get out a day and there is only one single winner. With $50,000 on the line, even with the game running from sunup to sundown daily, who wouldn’t be enticed into playing? Of course nothing is as it seems, there’s the horror.
At only 240 pages, this is a rather short one. Yet it still felt like kind of a slog to me. The story takes a strange amount of time to get going, the characters’ backgrounds play so heavily into the story and yet most of them are pointless or even unbelievable. The exposition takes away almost all of the creepiness…and let me tell you, this could have been a really creepy story.
The last section of the book though I really did enjoy (although even that felt like it went on for a little too long) which saved it. Once the truth is out the novel kind of goes balls-to-the-walls for the last 40 or so pages. Still in no way creepy or scary, but at the least I was entertained and interested to see what happened.
Kind of into it, but I didn’t love it.
Graphic: Cursing, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Body horror, Blood, Emotional abuse, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Gore, and Grief
nickoliver's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Now, bad things first. There were way too many different characters, and White played way too wildly with the POVs. In the hide-and-seek game itself, there were fourteen people in total, and the author attempted to give all of them at least a little bit of a backstory. But some of the characters were so inconsequential that I didn't understand why I needed to know so many details about them. Plus, a lot of them were referred to differently throughout the story - for example, there was a writer named Ian, and sometimes the text called him "Ian" and sometimes "the writer". You seriously had to keep a list of the names with their job descriptions and backstory with you at all times if you didn't want to get confused. For example, I kept forgetting who the hell Christian was. Especially the contestants who lost early were so easily forgotten that it really made no sense to give them a backstory at all. And the perspectives changed so many times that you sometimes got insight into almost every single character, and that was just too much. I think White might have attempted to not make it obvious which characters were going to be the first victims by trying to give them all the same level of importance, but it just didn't work.
Personally, I also wasn't the biggest fan with the way some of the characters were written. Brandon, for example, was lovely from beginning to end, but the way White talked about him almost infantilised him. Many of the characters were more caricatures than real people. And with Ava, one of the only non-white contestants, the author tried to bring a bit of nuance to the table - for example, had her talk about how she was always expected to be the strong one -, but there wasn't enough of it. It was more of an attempt to bring depth to the story, but it didn't really work all too well. Too many characters were also very casually homophobic towards Ava in particular - or rather, not to her face directly, just when they thought about her -, which was a bit exhausting. Why not a single one of them seemed to be able to act normally around a lesbian was beyond me.
At the beginning of the book, it seemed like Mack was the protagonist, but thanks to all the erratic perspective changes, she sometimes faded a bit into the background. Which was a bit of a pity, because she was a fascinating character, especially the way she felt about bravery and what one was expected to do in the face of something dangerous. But towards the end of the story, she did a few things that threw me off-guard. I lost track of her throughout the story and she didn't feel like a main character anymore, so I was surprised by some of her choices.
However, for a book that had too many characters and a lot of unimportant and unexplored ones at that, I did get quite attached to some of the more important ones. I did really like Mack for the most part, and I developed a soft spot for LeGrand. And while it was developed a bit too quickly, considering the story was set over the course of only a week, I did also get a bit invested in Mack and Ava's relationship. Maybe also because I didn't expect there to be sapphics, and I always love being surprised by queerness.
I was mostly excited for the story because the plot really hooked me in. For me, it took about 20% for me to start being invested, which is when the game actually started. I didn't know where the story was going to go, but I did expect it to go differently. I know a lot of people who didn't like where it went and what the actual reason for the game was, and while it was certainly a bit unoriginal and generic, it didn't put me off the book the way it seemed to have done for others. I still had a good time reading and was pulled in. I actually kind of liked it. Though I do think that White attempted to start conversations about important topics at time that fell a bit flat for me and didn't really go anywhere. That could've been explored a little bit more. And the ending was a little bit anticlimactic.
This was my sixth book by White, I think? Her books are mostly around the 3 star mark for me, with a tendency to be higher than that rather than lower. So I usually enjoy her stories, and this one was no exception. I read this pretty quickly once I got hooked, and while there were certainly things that could've been improved - mostly the chaos with the characters and the perspectives -, I still enjoyed it a lot. Which really surprised me.
Graphic: Ableism, Suicide, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Gun violence, Blood, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Religious bigotry, and Violence
Moderate: Grief
Minor: Infidelity, Alcoholism, and Homophobia
krystalg's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicide, Confinement, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Gun violence, Death of parent, Blood, Child death, and Violence
Moderate: Medical trauma, Abandonment, and Cursing
Minor: Homophobia, Racism, and Animal death
bookishgoob's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Violence, Chronic illness, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Suicide, Torture, Domestic abuse, and Religious bigotry