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3.5ish/5
I’d be lying if I said I weren’t disappointed with “Bath Haus.”
The vast majority of the book is a largely engaging, queer thriller that had me wanting to tear my hair due to the sheer terribleness of so many characters (this is a good thing). This book very much neatly fits into the “rich people are awful” sub-genre.
I really appreciate the candid queer depictions in this book and how it tackles power dynamics in relationships. It’s done really well. In fact, the majority of the book is great. Vernon does a good job of keeping Oliver “likeable” (which is not a requirement by any means for a book to be good. Just saying.) even when he makes questionable decisions, because these decisions are usually at least in some way understandable because of the clear depiction of an occasionally messy mind. The mind of someone who’s been through a lot.
Where things really take a nosedive for me is approximately the last third or so of the book, but most especially the final section of pages.
I won’t go into spoilers; however, I will say up until this point Oliver is depicted as naturally, innately smart. But there are a few moments where it feels like he’s the dumbest bitch on the earth, with borderline unforgivable lapses in logic that lead to certain scenarios feeling very forced.
Aside from this though, the plot I think overall just had one too many moving parts, which I’m choosing to blame on the parts of the twist being pretty clear so perhaps Vernon felt like more red herrings needed to be added to mitigate this.
Now, I will say, there is one part at the end that had me for a bit. It was a solid subversion (on the surface). But overall, it wasn’t enough for the book to stick the landing. And that sucks.
If you need a quick, engaging thriller, you could do far, FAR worse than this.
I’d be lying if I said I weren’t disappointed with “Bath Haus.”
The vast majority of the book is a largely engaging, queer thriller that had me wanting to tear my hair due to the sheer terribleness of so many characters (this is a good thing). This book very much neatly fits into the “rich people are awful” sub-genre.
I really appreciate the candid queer depictions in this book and how it tackles power dynamics in relationships. It’s done really well. In fact, the majority of the book is great. Vernon does a good job of keeping Oliver “likeable” (which is not a requirement by any means for a book to be good. Just saying.) even when he makes questionable decisions, because these decisions are usually at least in some way understandable because of the clear depiction of an occasionally messy mind. The mind of someone who’s been through a lot.
Where things really take a nosedive for me is approximately the last third or so of the book, but most especially the final section of pages.
I won’t go into spoilers; however, I will say up until this point Oliver is depicted as naturally, innately smart. But there are a few moments where it feels like he’s the dumbest bitch on the earth, with borderline unforgivable lapses in logic that lead to certain scenarios feeling very forced.
Aside from this though, the plot I think overall just had one too many moving parts, which I’m choosing to blame on the parts of the twist being pretty clear so perhaps Vernon felt like more red herrings needed to be added to mitigate this.
Now, I will say, there is one part at the end that had me for a bit. It was a solid subversion (on the surface). But overall, it wasn’t enough for the book to stick the landing. And that sucks.
If you need a quick, engaging thriller, you could do far, FAR worse than this.