rachael_perry 's review for:

The Fireman by Joe Hill

3.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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This took me a really long time to read. I started it before there was even a hint of a pandemic, and now the world is in full chaos. It’s literally burning. That made this book difficult to finish. I also got bored about a third of the way in. Several times, I thought the titular character had died and then he would show up with some snarky quip and I’d be hella confused. There is some problematic vocabulary used, by Harper, surprisingly, that bothered me. It also includes one of my least favorite tropes: men writing about pregnant women.

They simply don’t understand what it’s like and keep trying to make their female characters “cool” by having them do things like drink excessively, participate in high-speed chases and explosions, practically starve themselves without consequences, push through the pain of contractions for several days (not speaking for anyone else, but mine were horrific and went on for several days-once that water breaks, there is literally nothing else that occupies your mind until it either stops or you get the meds), and then forget about the fact that there’s an afterbirth. I think getting to the point where Harper discovers she’s pregnant and realizing that she would be through the entire novel soured my reading. I was over it before anything really happened.

 
 Having absolutely adored “Horns,” I pushed myself to finish this book, but having had my fill of pandemic stories already, I hated most of my time in this world.