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A review by erinxmegan
Antioch by Jessica Leonard
5.0
*actual rating is 4.5*
Antioch has a murderer running rampant, he’s dubbed Vlad the Impaler. Six women have been brutally murdered and there’s no real lead to who it could be.
By day Bess works at a bookstore, and by night she’s on a shortwave radio and looking into Amelia Earhart conspiracy theories.
One night Bess picks up a very odd transmission through the radio. She’s convinced that what she picked up is proof that the murderer has a 7th victim and if something isn’t done, then they’ll end up just like the rest.
Fun fact about me: I used to be obsessed with Amelia Earhart. I had to do a project on her in middle school and I was fascinated. I think that’s what grabbed me in the beginning about this book. A main character who had an obsession that I always randomly had? Sign me up.
The premise of the book is something that I find interesting, a regular person playing detective and trying to solve a case or stop the murderer before they kill again.
It’s suspenseful, it’s a race against the clock. Will they be able to save the person? Will the murderer figure it out and try to kill them?
I thought I knew how the book was going to play out based on that premise alone. Boy was I wrong.
I was confused the whole time.
The. Whole. Time.
First, Bess is a highly unreliable character. She drinks quite a bit, she loses days-thinks it’s Monday, when it is fact Wednesday. Her reactions are sometimes alarming, she seems unfazed by something that should be very unnerving.
Those are just some of the things, but there is a lot that makes Bess super unreliable in my opinion.
I even think someone could say that her fascination with Amelia Earhart conspiracies could be detrimental to her reliability.
In fact, every character in this book is highly suspicious. At one point I could see each of them being responsible for the murders. I didn’t know who had good intentions and who didn’t.
The paranoia from this book, omg.
Which leads me into my next point, the questions. I have so many freaking questions.
The book doesn’t answer anything, nothing, zero, nada, zilch. Unless, I am just not connecting the dots, which could totally happen.
The ending was sooooooo abrupt, I was devastated. It felt like it had just hit the climax and then poof, over.
I read the last sentence about 20 times before I accepted that it was truly over. I also read it that many times hoping something would reveal itself to me and give me some type of answer.
Like I said I have so many questions. I don’t know anything.
Now, I do think there are several conclusions one could come to from the ending. But that just doesn’t fly with me, I need something concrete to grab onto and while I think some people could create an ending, I don’t know what I think.
This books captivated the crap out of me and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it, minus the ending.
The loose strings are very annoying, but I don’t know there was just something about it that made me love it.
Antioch has a murderer running rampant, he’s dubbed Vlad the Impaler. Six women have been brutally murdered and there’s no real lead to who it could be.
By day Bess works at a bookstore, and by night she’s on a shortwave radio and looking into Amelia Earhart conspiracy theories.
One night Bess picks up a very odd transmission through the radio. She’s convinced that what she picked up is proof that the murderer has a 7th victim and if something isn’t done, then they’ll end up just like the rest.
Fun fact about me: I used to be obsessed with Amelia Earhart. I had to do a project on her in middle school and I was fascinated. I think that’s what grabbed me in the beginning about this book. A main character who had an obsession that I always randomly had? Sign me up.
The premise of the book is something that I find interesting, a regular person playing detective and trying to solve a case or stop the murderer before they kill again.
It’s suspenseful, it’s a race against the clock. Will they be able to save the person? Will the murderer figure it out and try to kill them?
I thought I knew how the book was going to play out based on that premise alone. Boy was I wrong.
I was confused the whole time.
The. Whole. Time.
First, Bess is a highly unreliable character. She drinks quite a bit, she loses days-thinks it’s Monday, when it is fact Wednesday. Her reactions are sometimes alarming, she seems unfazed by something that should be very unnerving.
Those are just some of the things, but there is a lot that makes Bess super unreliable in my opinion.
I even think someone could say that her fascination with Amelia Earhart conspiracies could be detrimental to her reliability.
In fact, every character in this book is highly suspicious. At one point I could see each of them being responsible for the murders. I didn’t know who had good intentions and who didn’t.
The paranoia from this book, omg.
Which leads me into my next point, the questions. I have so many freaking questions.
The book doesn’t answer anything, nothing, zero, nada, zilch. Unless, I am just not connecting the dots, which could totally happen.
The ending was sooooooo abrupt, I was devastated. It felt like it had just hit the climax and then poof, over.
I read the last sentence about 20 times before I accepted that it was truly over. I also read it that many times hoping something would reveal itself to me and give me some type of answer.
Like I said I have so many questions. I don’t know anything.
Now, I do think there are several conclusions one could come to from the ending. But that just doesn’t fly with me, I need something concrete to grab onto and while I think some people could create an ending, I don’t know what I think.
This books captivated the crap out of me and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it, minus the ending.
The loose strings are very annoying, but I don’t know there was just something about it that made me love it.