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A review by gentlemanjeff
Run Time by Catherine Ryan Howard
1.0
The tagline for this book reads "Movie-making can be murder," but there's very little of either one involved in this story of an actress with a spotty career getting an opportunity that proves too good to be true.
The immaturity of Run Time's big reveal is representative of the carelessness with which the author throws around tropes and contrives plot devices. Clearly, she knows the thriller genre and has powerful tools of the craft at her disposal, but interspersing the narrative with a confusingly parallel movie script (broken up by a confused, possibly unreliable narrator) makes this novel too gimmicky to be immersive or convincing. Despite the very adult trappings of the plot, the actual stakes are more fodder for a teen thriller than an adult horror novel, dealing in bruised feelings and fake affection rather than life and death.
The conniving jealousy of a struggling Hollywood hopeful is too familiar to be interesting without some genuine creativity or insight. At one point, a character says that mysteries only exist because we don't have all the facts yet, and that's exactly what this story amounts to, in the end.
Not much of a moviegoing experience in this decidedly uncinematic novel, the cool cover art is as far as it goes. Save your popcorn for a dumb shark movie this summer and walk away from Run Time.
Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the ARC.
The immaturity of Run Time's big reveal is representative of the carelessness with which the author throws around tropes and contrives plot devices. Clearly, she knows the thriller genre and has powerful tools of the craft at her disposal, but interspersing the narrative with a confusingly parallel movie script (broken up by a confused, possibly unreliable narrator) makes this novel too gimmicky to be immersive or convincing. Despite the very adult trappings of the plot, the actual stakes are more fodder for a teen thriller than an adult horror novel, dealing in bruised feelings and fake affection rather than life and death.
The conniving jealousy of a struggling Hollywood hopeful is too familiar to be interesting without some genuine creativity or insight. At one point, a character says that mysteries only exist because we don't have all the facts yet, and that's exactly what this story amounts to, in the end.
Not much of a moviegoing experience in this decidedly uncinematic novel, the cool cover art is as far as it goes. Save your popcorn for a dumb shark movie this summer and walk away from Run Time.
Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the ARC.