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A review by inkedwxtchreads
Bent Heavens by Daniel Kraus
1.0
Yeah this was just ridiculous and super messed up. And not in the way that I enjoy. Also my second rating this low this year. Wtf is happening? I NEVER give ratings this low. But I really did not like this reading experience even slightly.
Basically girls dad disappears after being paranoid about alien. Girl and random friend find random alien. Instead of doing idk literally anything else… they BRUTALLY and graphically torture said alien who is basically an animal in the sense that it cannot communicate (not really a spoiler and I think people deserve to be warned anyway). Keep in mind this is YA and these are teenagers. It was a lot. I can usually handle pretty much anything (even animal deaths ) but it totally depends on how it’s executed, and in this one I just couldn’t get behind it. Gratuitous torture for the sake of just being as disturbing as possible will never be my thing. It also just felt like there was no real goal with the torture, and it was kind of hard to believe this is how it would play out because of that. I had to skim a lot of the torture scenes. It does get really dark.
Though we do have other plot points in the book, such as the fact that the friend of the Mc is pretty unhinged. I don’t think that’s supposed to be a twist as I thought it was obvious from the start. I really don’t get the reviews saying they liked Doug in the beginning. He was ALWAYS sketchy imo you just aren’t sure of what his motives are or what he’s up to. But I also just didn’t like him as a character, even for being a gray character. His motives never did make sense to me.
The MC Liv just had no likable traits either… and it didn’t really feel like any of her thoughts were actually her own.
This book has a few twists and those twists are near the end… where this book gets totally bonkers unbelievable. Though it was kind of messed up and I didn’t see it coming. So props there kind of.
I liked the idea of the book and I was kind of intrigued as to why the characters decided to handle it this way, especially Doug, being it wasn’t actually his father. But this book just left me wanting.
But again, it is graphic. It pushes boundaries I don’t think YA should. Like why not make them adults in college if they really want the school setting? But yeah just be warned…. This reads waaaay more adult than it should.
There were a few questionable things said about a Mexican character as well… which I won’t even get into. Just know it made me feel weird.
Don’t know if I’ll check this author out again or not. Not really interested in his other stuff, so I don’t think forcing myself to read it would be a fair chance at redemption. If he puts anything out in the future though… then maybe. But I don’t think I would jump at the chance even then.
Basically girls dad disappears after being paranoid about alien. Girl and random friend find random alien. Instead of doing idk literally anything else… they BRUTALLY and graphically torture said alien who is basically an animal in the sense that it cannot communicate (not really a spoiler and I think people deserve to be warned anyway). Keep in mind this is YA and these are teenagers. It was a lot. I can usually handle pretty much anything (even animal deaths ) but it totally depends on how it’s executed, and in this one I just couldn’t get behind it. Gratuitous torture for the sake of just being as disturbing as possible will never be my thing. It also just felt like there was no real goal with the torture, and it was kind of hard to believe this is how it would play out because of that. I had to skim a lot of the torture scenes. It does get really dark.
Though we do have other plot points in the book, such as the fact that the friend of the Mc is pretty unhinged. I don’t think that’s supposed to be a twist as I thought it was obvious from the start. I really don’t get the reviews saying they liked Doug in the beginning. He was ALWAYS sketchy imo you just aren’t sure of what his motives are or what he’s up to. But I also just didn’t like him as a character, even for being a gray character. His motives never did make sense to me.
The MC Liv just had no likable traits either… and it didn’t really feel like any of her thoughts were actually her own.
This book has a few twists and those twists are near the end… where this book gets totally bonkers unbelievable. Though it was kind of messed up and I didn’t see it coming. So props there kind of.
I liked the idea of the book and I was kind of intrigued as to why the characters decided to handle it this way, especially Doug, being it wasn’t actually his father. But this book just left me wanting.
But again, it is graphic. It pushes boundaries I don’t think YA should. Like why not make them adults in college if they really want the school setting? But yeah just be warned…. This reads waaaay more adult than it should.
There were a few questionable things said about a Mexican character as well… which I won’t even get into. Just know it made me feel weird.
Don’t know if I’ll check this author out again or not. Not really interested in his other stuff, so I don’t think forcing myself to read it would be a fair chance at redemption. If he puts anything out in the future though… then maybe. But I don’t think I would jump at the chance even then.