A review by katherineclimber
The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Um so I think I like thrillers now?? This book was so amazing, I don't have words to express how much I loved it. It was creepy and all the characters were messed up and everyone had their own secrets, but I think that's what made it so interesting and compelling to read. Even though it was confusing at times, it was fun to follow so many different storylines at once because I knew they were eventually all going to converge, and trust me when they did I was literally silent screaming, um yea. This is definitely one of the best, or even the best book I've read all year. For me, one way I know a book is incredible is how it will make me physically react. For example, this book made me gasp many-o-times, it made my jaw  d r o p  every time something big happened (which was a lot), I almost cried, and I slammed the book down and stared at the ceiling more than once. This book is also super dark, and there a lot of people who are just insane, and you know, murder people. But let me tell you, when one of the worst people in the book got murdered, I was very happy, revenge is very sweet. Anyways, like I said, this book has a lot of different characters with weird families so I would 10/10 recommend making a character chart to keep track of it all. So now that I've figured out that I love books like this, I don't know how I am going to be able to find any that live up to this one. Oh, also I watched the movie after I finished reading the book, and it was almost just as good as the book, even though the ending was a little wack. So now that's also one of my favorite movies. Oh and lastly I did listen to this as an audiobook while I read along in the physical book, which was super awesome because all the southern accents in the audiobook really help you become enveloped in the story. So basically what I learned from this absolute masterpiece of a book is that I like books that are "dark and twisty" to quote my mom, and also, very oddly specific but, I like books with small-towns where everyone is messed up and people are getting killed( see "The Lost causes of Bleak Creek" and "Sharp Objects") </spoiler?

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