Scan barcode
A review by skylarkblue1
Hide by Kiersten White
5.0
Content Warnings: Suicide, gore, violence, self harm, severe PTSD, loss of a loved one, cults, homophobia, severe injury
So, first off I just want to address the reviews here. I wanted to know why this was rated so low because I personally loved it and was curious to know what issues others had with it. Reading through them though, I felt like I'd read an entirely different book? It's not horror? There's no on-page deaths/gore? The characters are flat? Nothing makes sense?
The horror: It is most certainly an adult horror. There is a hell of a lot of gore and violence, and it gets very descriptive. I would not be overly comfortable giving this book to someone younger than like, 17 if that. There's multiple graphic deaths all throughout the book, each with their own harrowing descriptions. Sure, not every single one is on page, but I found that to be a good point for the book, leaving it up to your imagination about what fate brought to those people, using the known aftermath as clues.
The characters: I loved them. Yes, not all are terribly well fleshed out, but there's 14 main competitors and the majority of them die pretty fast. It get's clear pretty early on about who's gonna survive the longest thanks to who has the most formed character arcs. Writing-wise, that makes sense. I don't really want to read paragraphs upon paragraphs of a character who's about to die on the next page. Doesn't mean to say though that the ones who die early mean nothing, I would say there is enough there to get a sense of character, and a small feeling of loss when they go, a feeling that grows the further into the book you go.
The final characters though, and the characters running the show, don't feel flat even slightly. The 2 characters with severe (but different) PTSD both feel very different despite the same condition, and the PTSD approach to both I felt was very good. The "nice" guy has a lot more than just being "nice" and I genuenly can't see how people see him as nothing other than that - I can't go into details without spoilers however, but still.
The writing: Honestly, I thought it was top-notch. I adored the unique style. The book is not split p into traditional chapters, instead it's split into days. Chapter/PoV shifts and similar are denoted by a fair few new-lines (it's hard to miss) and you pick that up very fast. As for the PoV shifts, yes, it is frequent. However this is literally the first PoV shifting book I've read where I didn't need to go back and check who's PoV it was as I at least felt it was very obvious with the tone and style of the writing for each character to know who it was - even for the early-death characters.
The messaging the book was going for was incredibly clear, the plot line was also even potentially *over-explained* I felt, so everything made sense.
TLDR; I don't know what book the 1-star reviews read. I for one absolutely loved it and it'll go onto my reccomended for sure. I loved the sapphic love, I loved the disability representation (a character with multiple disabilities??? Yes that is realistic but it's far too rare to see that kind of rep!!) and the way it handled PTSD especially was also great I felt.
That ending as well, oh my god *yes* I loved it. It's not your traditional ending (It's not your traditional book tbh), but my god it was satisfying as hell! It is also NOT a hunger games/squid games knock/rip off, go consume literally any other types of media, please.
So, first off I just want to address the reviews here. I wanted to know why this was rated so low because I personally loved it and was curious to know what issues others had with it. Reading through them though, I felt like I'd read an entirely different book? It's not horror? There's no on-page deaths/gore? The characters are flat? Nothing makes sense?
The horror: It is most certainly an adult horror. There is a hell of a lot of gore and violence, and it gets very descriptive. I would not be overly comfortable giving this book to someone younger than like, 17 if that. There's multiple graphic deaths all throughout the book, each with their own harrowing descriptions. Sure, not every single one is on page, but I found that to be a good point for the book, leaving it up to your imagination about what fate brought to those people, using the known aftermath as clues.
The characters: I loved them. Yes, not all are terribly well fleshed out, but there's 14 main competitors and the majority of them die pretty fast. It get's clear pretty early on about who's gonna survive the longest thanks to who has the most formed character arcs. Writing-wise, that makes sense. I don't really want to read paragraphs upon paragraphs of a character who's about to die on the next page. Doesn't mean to say though that the ones who die early mean nothing, I would say there is enough there to get a sense of character, and a small feeling of loss when they go, a feeling that grows the further into the book you go.
The final characters though, and the characters running the show, don't feel flat even slightly. The 2 characters with severe (but different) PTSD both feel very different despite the same condition, and the PTSD approach to both I felt was very good. The "nice" guy has a lot more than just being "nice" and I genuenly can't see how people see him as nothing other than that - I can't go into details without spoilers however, but still.
The writing: Honestly, I thought it was top-notch. I adored the unique style. The book is not split p into traditional chapters, instead it's split into days. Chapter/PoV shifts and similar are denoted by a fair few new-lines (it's hard to miss) and you pick that up very fast. As for the PoV shifts, yes, it is frequent. However this is literally the first PoV shifting book I've read where I didn't need to go back and check who's PoV it was as I at least felt it was very obvious with the tone and style of the writing for each character to know who it was - even for the early-death characters.
The messaging the book was going for was incredibly clear, the plot line was also even potentially *over-explained* I felt, so everything made sense.
TLDR; I don't know what book the 1-star reviews read. I for one absolutely loved it and it'll go onto my reccomended for sure. I loved the sapphic love, I loved the disability representation (a character with multiple disabilities??? Yes that is realistic but it's far too rare to see that kind of rep!!) and the way it handled PTSD especially was also great I felt.
That ending as well, oh my god *yes* I loved it. It's not your traditional ending (It's not your traditional book tbh), but my god it was satisfying as hell! It is also NOT a hunger games/squid games knock/rip off, go consume literally any other types of media, please.