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minimicropup's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
lighthearted
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? It's complicated
2.0
This book felt too long and mushed together too many ideas (many of which were great but could have used their own story). By 50%, I wanted to put it down and that feeling never went away.
Energy: Careless. Capricious. Shifty.
Scene: 🇺🇸 Set in Lawrence, Kansas
Perspective: We follow an Australian law student who dropped out of Uni and flew to America hoping to stay with their lawyer brother to work on a first novel. A chance meeting with a famous but controversial thriller writer leads to a mentorship (maybe more) but puts our main character in the spotlight after a gruesome murder.
🐺 Growls: Cartoony action scenes. Repetitive topics and musings. Too much ‘silliness’ in the storytelling style. Theo, her thoughts, her actions, her incompetency…her very being 😂
🐕 Howls: The synopsis is misleading and more of a B- or C-plot. Time jumping ‘lazy’ ending.
🐩 Tail Wags: The first half. Originality. Creative plot ideas. Conspiracy theory doomsday angle.
🤔 Random Thoughts:
Theo was the worst. I’m a sucker for unlikeable characters, but Theo felt like a convenient plot device with her unbelievable damsel-in-distress decisions. She was all inner monologues about how grateful she is for her brother keeping her safe...then she’d knowingly do the most banal idiotic crap, and her brother and his friend would have to rescue her by putting their lives in danger repeatedly. I wanted to push her aside and get to the other characters we were getting too little of.
There’s an escalation of stakes through action and chase, cat-and-mouse survival without knowing the connection or what is happening. Eventually, we know more ( it had a ‘that’s it?’ feel). I hated how we often found things out through repetitive dialogue. The kind where a character reveals something to another character. Then, that character tells the same thing to a different one and so on.
There’s a shift in style and tone halfway through. Whether you prefer the slow bizarro mystery from the first half or the wacky action adventure of the second half, you may feel a little ripped off by the ending. It all ends abruptly when we jump years in advance, switch character perspectives, and are told what has happened since. Like an extended epilogue but full of plot holes and unresolved subplots.
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🎬 Tale-Telling: A little melodramatic and verbose (lots of dialogue and reflecting).
🤓 Reader Role: Overhearing from the sidelines and sometimes jumping deep into Theo’s mind.
🗺️ World-Building: Simple, a bit gritty, little moments of sensory immersion, but somehow still felt out of place.
🔥 Fuel: First, a murder mystery and figuring out what the bizarre online posts ahead of the chapters mean. Then it’s violence and explosions without context – on the run but not sure from who or why. It settles into wondering how everything will wrap up once we know some truths.
📖 Cred: Over-the-top silliness (not camp), suspended disbelief
🚙 Journey: Struggle chugging spinning wheels, ending in a bullet train blur.
Mood Reading Match-Up:
- Gun shots. Squealing tires. Coffee. Breaking glass. Dog barking. Distant footsteps. Keys in the door.
- Bizarro cozy mystery meets conspiracy theorist doomsday drama meets PG14 action-adventure
Content Heads-Up: Guns and gun violence. Sexual content (consenting; brief). Threats. Stalking. Medical (intensive care, life-saving procedures). Murder, dead bodies. Sexual assault. Blood.
Rep: Cisgender. Heterosexual. Dark/tan-skinned Australians and White Americans.
📚 Format: Library Digital
My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Blood, Medical content, and Stalking
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