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A review by ruminations_reverie
A Black and Endless Sky by Matthew Lyons
3.0
2.5 rounded up.
This was rather disappointing for me. It started at a high point with the prologue, but once the sibling dynamics came in as a defining feature of the story it really fell flat.
This set of siblings, Nell and Jonah, just don't feel authentic and I couldn't connect with them. That is to say that I just didn't care about them...at all. The two POVs, because they spent a lot of time together, just didn't feel necessary. I think 3rd person omniscient might have worked out better or just one POV as Nell and one POV as Anna could work in its favor, but the perspective from Terry was absolutely worthless. I don't mind him as a character, but it just didn't feel like viewing the story from his perspective made sense.
The story had these intense horror elements, these apocalyptic visions and the descriptions of the body horror, that were fantastic, but they were few and far between. The other pieces of the novel where we are trying to figure out this strange sibling relationship through anger and forgiveness didn't jive with me. Look, I love a deeply emotional sibling story that resolves itself through the shared trauma, but these two didn't fit the mold. They just weren't relatable or emotionally impactful.
Overall the book was ok. The plot setup was great, but the execution could have been better. At the beginning I was getting a lot of "The Library at Mt. Char" vibes, but those quickly disappeared and I was left with a watered down story that lost its appeal after the 1st third and I didn't care for the ending. I think for fans of demon/possession stories there is something to love about the lore here, but just be prepared that the family dynamics could get in the way a little.
This was rather disappointing for me. It started at a high point with the prologue, but once the sibling dynamics came in as a defining feature of the story it really fell flat.
This set of siblings, Nell and Jonah, just don't feel authentic and I couldn't connect with them. That is to say that I just didn't care about them...at all. The two POVs, because they spent a lot of time together, just didn't feel necessary. I think 3rd person omniscient might have worked out better or just one POV as Nell and one POV as Anna could work in its favor, but the perspective from Terry was absolutely worthless. I don't mind him as a character, but it just didn't feel like viewing the story from his perspective made sense.
The story had these intense horror elements, these apocalyptic visions and the descriptions of the body horror, that were fantastic, but they were few and far between. The other pieces of the novel where we are trying to figure out this strange sibling relationship through anger and forgiveness didn't jive with me. Look, I love a deeply emotional sibling story that resolves itself through the shared trauma, but these two didn't fit the mold. They just weren't relatable or emotionally impactful.
Overall the book was ok. The plot setup was great, but the execution could have been better. At the beginning I was getting a lot of "The Library at Mt. Char" vibes, but those quickly disappeared and I was left with a watered down story that lost its appeal after the 1st third and I didn't care for the ending. I think for fans of demon/possession stories there is something to love about the lore here, but just be prepared that the family dynamics could get in the way a little.