A review by rmnedder
Bullet Tooth by Grant Wamack

dark tense medium-paced

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

2.5

Disclaimer: thank you to NetGalley and Broken River Books for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review! 

I really enjoyed the premise of the novella. I’m a huge fan of analog horror, and was really excited by the combination of analog and supernatural horror. I wish we had seen more of Bullet Tooth, but what I did see of him I really liked; he’s creepy, he’s eldritch, and I really enjoyed his parasitic relationship with violence. I just wish he and the analog horror featured more. The analog horror in particular felt like a background idea, which felt weird since this is a horror novella. 

The characters were alright, if a bit two-dimensional. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the pacing though. The plot itself was fine, but it felt like there were a lot of things that were rushed or weren’t given the appropriate narrative weight; not everything felt justified. The ending felt very rushed. 

My biggest issue with this book is honestly the writing style. There are editing errors left and right: missing or unnecessary punctuation, fragmented sentences, incorrect words. The dialogue feels very stilted and unnatural at times; it just didn’t read like the way real people would speak. The prose, while sometimes very clever, usually feels awkward and clunky; entire scenes feel very overwritten. There’s a lot of unnecessary detail that bogs down the reader and makes chapters drag out, and it’s difficult to tell what’s important. It’s a shame, too, because I can tell that this is supposed to be a fast-paced story, but all the fluff and editing errors distracted me as a reader and made this move way slower than intended. It honestly felt like this book was in need of another round of edits. 

There are moments that were legitimately hilarious, and there were some really interesting motifs or character moments that I was very intrigued by, but they were overshadowed by a series of shortcomings that made it difficult for me to be fully engaged with the story. Overall, I’d say that this was a book with great potential, but it ultimately fell very short in its execution.