A review by rmnedder
Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein

challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A brilliant, beautiful, gut-wrenching tapestry of a story. Hosein's prose is exquisite--legitimately some of the best stylized writing I have encountered in a long while! All of the main cast of characters are well-developed and complex, spanning the gamut from detestable to pitiable to genuinely likeable. There are a lot of moving parts in this story, and the author manages to keep everything in the air and moving along without too much hassle, which is impressive in a story of this magnitude and scale. I do wish, though, that there were some threads that were tied off more thoroughly or explored a little further; there was so much happening that I felt at times that things were getting a little lost in the shuffle, but never egregiously so! I did also find that the story moved a little slow at times, but that's more of a preferential thing than anything else.

Overall this was was a gorgeous and tragic story about how our pasts haunt us--and this book will haunt me for some time to come. Read the content warnings - this one gets intense.
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