A review by cheye13
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

The first half of this felt like a very promising murder mystery with a little supernatural twist. It initially seemed that the main character would get over the "rules" and piece together clues over the course of the book. Unfortunately, the back half dropped the ball. The supernatural stuff took over and pieces of the mystery(s) were either dropped, glossed over, or tied up way too conveniently. The premise was promising, but this story tried to hard to be both genres, instead of picking one main one and sprinkling the second genre for flavor.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Animal death, Gore, Medical content, Stalking, Grief, and Gun violence

Minor: Sexual assault, Rape, Kidnapping, Addiction, and Drug abuse

the fatphobia is egregious; it's my reading that it's internalized fatphobia, as it's contained to the chapters in which the main character inhabits the fat persona, intended to exemplify the effect the different hosts' personalities have on the main character, but is still very tactlessly written, and is sustained through a significant portion of the book.