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A review by sipping_tea_with_ghosts
Pine by Francine Toon
1.0
If this book is supposed to be eerie and thrilling, I suppose whoever wrote that on the cover lives in fear of whenever they have to go grocery shopping at night. No, this story is the exact opposite of thrilling. Thrills promise at least some form of consistent or occasional adrenaline pumping pace, but this 300+ page story is slower than a snail dying on a salt factory floor. The proper pairing of words for this novel is mundane and overwritten.
Every chapter in this story is about 80% description and bout-less exposition, 15% tangents and clumsy metaphors, and perhaps if you're lucky, you'll have the other 5% be dedicated to plot progression. I understand that you need to set things up for pay offs later, but you need to remember to actually pay it off and not go on another tangent.
The characters had the possibility of having interesting growth through these unsettling circumstances but the rather patronizing repetition of their flaws and struggles as well as jarring tonal and setting shifts breaks any hope of that happening. Examples being that Niall, one of the main characters is a drunk. Did you not catch it the first time? No worries, you'll be reminded of it in some fashion in almost every single chapter he's in. Even a recovering alcoholic like King doesn't hammer that into your skull that hard, even in stories where that's the focus. Example of the tone shift is when something bad happens to Lauren such as getting bullied or seeing blood leak in the house, instead of focusing on it or telling her dad about it, the plot just shifts to her sitting on a couch watching jeopardy as if nothing happened. Regardless of her character, that makes no sense. No one ever mentions what happened the previous night when something odd or supernatural occurs and just go on like there's nothing to be concerned about.
If you estimated this novel to be 100,000 words, you could take out every sentence dedicated to the central mystery and only add up to 2,000 at most.
It's not "atmospheric" writing, it's filler and nothing more.
I was drawn in by the cover and the premise and what I'm left with is another disappointing read, with a mystery mostly relegated to the very end, literally dumped on you within the last 20 pages.
No twist, no surprise, just left pining for anything else.
Every chapter in this story is about 80% description and bout-less exposition, 15% tangents and clumsy metaphors, and perhaps if you're lucky, you'll have the other 5% be dedicated to plot progression. I understand that you need to set things up for pay offs later, but you need to remember to actually pay it off and not go on another tangent.
The characters had the possibility of having interesting growth through these unsettling circumstances but the rather patronizing repetition of their flaws and struggles as well as jarring tonal and setting shifts breaks any hope of that happening. Examples being that Niall, one of the main characters is a drunk. Did you not catch it the first time? No worries, you'll be reminded of it in some fashion in almost every single chapter he's in. Even a recovering alcoholic like King doesn't hammer that into your skull that hard, even in stories where that's the focus. Example of the tone shift is when something bad happens to Lauren such as getting bullied or seeing blood leak in the house, instead of focusing on it or telling her dad about it, the plot just shifts to her sitting on a couch watching jeopardy as if nothing happened. Regardless of her character, that makes no sense. No one ever mentions what happened the previous night when something odd or supernatural occurs and just go on like there's nothing to be concerned about.
If you estimated this novel to be 100,000 words, you could take out every sentence dedicated to the central mystery and only add up to 2,000 at most.
It's not "atmospheric" writing, it's filler and nothing more.
I was drawn in by the cover and the premise and what I'm left with is another disappointing read, with a mystery mostly relegated to the very end, literally dumped on you within the last 20 pages.
No twist, no surprise, just left pining for anything else.