A review by skillyillian
The Watchers by A.M. Shine

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

as i said in my review of The Creeper, A.M. Shine writes great descriptions of stuff and his view of Ireland's cultures and folklore is so interesting. i got through this in about four days, listening as often as i could. shine writes characters who are very individual, they don't feel like cardboard cut-outs and i like that a lot, but it feels like in both books of his i've read now, his characters are so focused on escaping The Horrors (tm) that they don't have room to really develop. They make sacrifices for each other, but it feels like stuff they'd be willing to do (for the people they care about) from the get-go anyway. 

the watchers themselves were really fun, i liked how spooky they were, and how the characters had no idea what the hell their deal was until the back half of the story. 

i felt like the two bigger twists weren't too difficult to spot, but there were still parts of it i hadn't expected, and i enjoyed getting more details once they happened.
madeline being a watcher was the thing i spotted first, although i hadn't figured she was one of them until someone mentioned "what if they could come out during the day?" and then it clicked. i knew she was on their side but i didn't predict her being one of the ones who was trained on the doctor's wife, so mina finding that picture at the college was really fun. the bunker made sense, but the thing that bothered me a little was that it was covered in cement with a heavy table that left the cement with an indent. if the concrete had already been dry, and filled from the door to the level of the floor, it shouldn't have budged into denting with a table on top of it. if the table had been put there while the concrete was wet, it should've been cemented into the space. it didn't feel like the logic was 100% there. why did the doctor cover the one safe space with cement? if he left a "hey you found it" video, expecting someone to end up down there, why would he have covered it with concrete at all? if it wasn't him, then who? madeline? why would she do that, and how, instead of showing it to the other people trapped there? idk. maybe it got explained and i forgot already. i'm writing this review a couple weeks after finishing the book.


anyway, a fun story, if you don't think about certain parts of it too much, lmao. i'm planning on watching the movie at some point, but i don't think i'll read the second book.
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