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majesticallyawkward 's review for:
Hemlock Island
by Kelley Armstrong
***** SPOILERS *****
This was sitting at a solid 3 stars until about the second half. The premise started off intriguing, the characters were fine, and I was just along for a spooky ride. But when the event that kicked off the whole thing turned out to be an accidental "oath" to an entity that no one knew existed and who goes on a murderous rampage because people don't respect nature, I lost any investment I had in the outcome. That on it's own could have still been a 2.5 maybe still a generous 3 star.
Then we start rationalizing the rage-aholic rapist. The 19 year old man who drugged and raped a 15 year old girl, threatened her if she told anyone, who then ends up pregnant. This is barely revealed before we hear multiple times "he's not a monster", "but he's such a good brother" and "he cares about his daughter". What the actual fuck is all that! Even if the justification came from a place of residual trauma and denial, there were plenty of other characters that could have bene used to address that regardless of how nice he is to his sister, he is still a rapist and sugar coating that is just gross. And if that wasn't enough, she doesn't want to say too much bad about him because she wants her daughter to have some kind of relationship with this man. It was obvious from he arrived to the story that he was a shit human being, and then as we realize just how shit he was, we also seem to be led to believe he's still not so bad, abusive, rage filled, and a rapist, but not so bad.
This was sitting at a solid 3 stars until about the second half. The premise started off intriguing, the characters were fine, and I was just along for a spooky ride. But when the event that kicked off the whole thing turned out to be an accidental "oath" to an entity that no one knew existed and who goes on a murderous rampage because people don't respect nature, I lost any investment I had in the outcome. That on it's own could have still been a 2.5 maybe still a generous 3 star.
Then we start rationalizing the rage-aholic rapist. The 19 year old man who drugged and raped a 15 year old girl, threatened her if she told anyone, who then ends up pregnant. This is barely revealed before we hear multiple times "he's not a monster", "but he's such a good brother" and "he cares about his daughter". What the actual fuck is all that! Even if the justification came from a place of residual trauma and denial, there were plenty of other characters that could have bene used to address that regardless of how nice he is to his sister, he is still a rapist and sugar coating that is just gross. And if that wasn't enough, she doesn't want to say too much bad about him because she wants her daughter to have some kind of relationship with this man. It was obvious from he arrived to the story that he was a shit human being, and then as we realize just how shit he was, we also seem to be led to believe he's still not so bad, abusive, rage filled, and a rapist, but not so bad.