A review by jellybean_gene
This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

While I enjoyed the premise of the book and the suspense promised in its prologue I wound up losing steam while reading this book and not being very invested in how the ending played out. 

It's a great elevator pitch: 4 people died in 2019, there's evidence of strange (maybe even supernatural) electrical interferences to the point where there are ghost-messages and stories on Instagram, no one knows what happened, it's become a modern day ghost story. This is their story. 

But in the actual execution it felt like the flashback to 2019 to tell us their story was not really chock-full of enough suspense to make me tense at each character's impending doom. That and the teasing out of the big bad never really felt like it went anywhere.

Is the valley itself a monster? How does it manage electrical interference? Why would the illusory landscape be pixelated and give off computer-ish vibes. How could it have lured Clay in with "the world's most perfect climbing landscape" when he was flying above it, seemingly miles up in the air?

All in all, it seemed like a good enough idea that just didn't meet its full potential in how compelling the story could have been.

Maybe the earlier victims' flashbacks could have been revealed sooner or maybe giving the ghosts more agency (is the colonel more powerful a ghost than the rest???) would have added enough oomph to the overall story.