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exorcismemily 's review for:
The Mongrel
by Seán O'Connor
"Under a full moon, man can be driven to lunacy."
The Mongrel is the debut novella from Sean O'Connor, and I received a copy to review for Nightworms. I had some mixed feelings on it, but I felt pretty positive overall by the end.
It was difficult to read some of the gaslighting and abuse scenes, particularly abuse of a pregnant woman, so just a warning that it's a factor in this book. I felt like there was a lot of focus on it for such a short novella, and that we could have still grasped the characters' relationship if more attention would have been put elsewhere. I have some more thoughts on it that I can't really say without spoiling anything, so I'm just going to leave it alone.
There was a bit of overkill with certain words - the characters called each other "babe" non-stop, which I found distracting and frustrating after a while, and the main character seems to refer to any guy around her as an "alpha male". I get why it's there because there are wolves in the book, too, but it was hard to sympathize with Erin sometimes when she found all controlling men to be endearing.
After the story has built up a bit, it gets very intense, and this is where I was hooked. The writing in the middle of the book is very well done - it's incredibly suspenseful, and I stayed up later than intended so I could finish the book. It's fairly descriptive, and I'll definitely remember it whether I want to or not.
I feel like at some point too many storylines got tangled together. As I said before, a lot of the focus was on the abusive relationship, and some of these other side stories could have been expanded. This book is partially a creature feature, but the creatures play such a minimal role. The concept of the story was intriguing overall, but I feel like there was just too much packed in (especially in the second half).
Although I had some issues, I did like The Mongrel overall. The author is a good storyteller (especially for suspense scenes), but I think I would have enjoyed the book more if it had a little more structure. I would try another book from this author. Thank you for sending copies to the Nightworms!
The Mongrel is the debut novella from Sean O'Connor, and I received a copy to review for Nightworms. I had some mixed feelings on it, but I felt pretty positive overall by the end.
It was difficult to read some of the gaslighting and abuse scenes, particularly abuse of a pregnant woman, so just a warning that it's a factor in this book. I felt like there was a lot of focus on it for such a short novella, and that we could have still grasped the characters' relationship if more attention would have been put elsewhere. I have some more thoughts on it that I can't really say without spoiling anything, so I'm just going to leave it alone.
There was a bit of overkill with certain words - the characters called each other "babe" non-stop, which I found distracting and frustrating after a while, and the main character seems to refer to any guy around her as an "alpha male". I get why it's there because there are wolves in the book, too, but it was hard to sympathize with Erin sometimes when she found all controlling men to be endearing.
After the story has built up a bit, it gets very intense, and this is where I was hooked. The writing in the middle of the book is very well done - it's incredibly suspenseful, and I stayed up later than intended so I could finish the book. It's fairly descriptive, and I'll definitely remember it whether I want to or not.
I feel like at some point too many storylines got tangled together. As I said before, a lot of the focus was on the abusive relationship, and some of these other side stories could have been expanded. This book is partially a creature feature, but the creatures play such a minimal role. The concept of the story was intriguing overall, but I feel like there was just too much packed in (especially in the second half).
Although I had some issues, I did like The Mongrel overall. The author is a good storyteller (especially for suspense scenes), but I think I would have enjoyed the book more if it had a little more structure. I would try another book from this author. Thank you for sending copies to the Nightworms!