A review by oliviagwynne
Run Time by Catherine Ryan Howard

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I’m hoping this gives what I was expecting from Night Film last year 

When a character will wax on and on about this terrible past of theirs to an extreme extent, but then you know that you’re not gonna get the backstory for quite some time, it’s wildly irritating. 

I’ve discovered that I REALLY dislike hindsight thoughts in narration. It takes away a lot of the building tension and mystery for me. 

Has the story with a story device as the screenplay of the movie they’re filming is interspersed with the regular narrative. Very Meta and aware of the meta-ness. It’s a story within a screenplay within another story. 

I honestly like the screenplay storyline MORE than Adele’s for the first half of the book. 

It did really well at conveying the mental tension and stress at the isolation in a dark wood. 

999 hanging up on her stretched ALL CREDULITY 

Finally getting the backstory but it felt very meh. I feel like the way it was told actually slowed the momentum of the story rather than help. 

I hated how much Adele didn’t trust her own mind. I hated that she trust everyone but herself but that highlights how aggravating and confusing everything must have been for her as a character. 

It kept having reveals that felt overly obvious only for a new reveal a few minutes later to completely change what you thought you knew.