kevs_library 's review for:

Breathe In, Bleed Out by Brian McAuley

3.0

dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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In Breathe In, Bleed Out, Hannah is a Xanax-dependent med student struggling with the death of her fiancé. Haunted by images of him and in trouble at her job, she accepts a friend’s invitation to a relaxing wilderness retreat. Until her friends start getting murdered. 

This book was a really mixed bag for me. I enjoyed the lore building of the local ghost story and the spooky chases and ghost/killer appearances. However, the characters fell flat for me and the killer reveal at the end wasn’t super satisfying to me. 

All of the characters fit into classic slasher archetypes (the macho aggressive man, the artsy lesbian, the one dating the aggressive macho man, the good guy love interest, and the traumatized main girl that everyone thinks is crazy), which I feel led to their characters being one-dimensional.

With an out-of-nowhere killer reveal, that only kind of made sense to me, it just fell a little flat at the end.

I’d still recommend to anyone who loves a good slasher movie!

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press, NetGalley, and Brian McAuley for the eARC!