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A review by charspages
Wranglestone by Darren Charlton
2.0
I was given this book by Mira with the following words: "You have to read this. I would like to know your thoughts on this."
Well, dear friends, here's what I think in a nutshell:
I couldn't have said it better myself. But I'll try anyway:
PLOT: 1.5 / 5
When I first read the synposis of this book, I lost my shit - zombies? National parks? Queer boys fighting the zombie apocalypse? Perfect.
[b:Wranglestone|50049417|Wranglestone (Wranglestone, #1)|Darren Charlton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1572268074l/50049417._SX50_SY75_.jpg|72248036] had all the ingredients for what could have been one of my new favorite reads: gay representation, a gritty tale of survival against the beautiful backdrop of North American national parks, and zombies. I'm such a sucker for zombies, y'all.
Sadly, the premise was amazing - the story not so much. While I loved the first half of the book and flew through the pages in one day, I completely lost interest about halfway through. It took me nearly a week to read the last 150 pages alone. Somewhere halfway through, the story became too confusing, too twisted for me.
It felt a little like Charlton was trying to do too many things at once, and after one plot-twist too many, I couldn't really follow the story line anymore. I wish Charlton would have stuck with the much simpler, clearer plot that the first 150 pages laid out, instead of going wherever he went with it in the second half. (Don't ask me. I have no clue.)
CHARACTERS: 2 / 5
My second big issue with Wranglestone were its characters, because when one of the characters who was mentioned earlier shows up and reveals they're the villain in a tense, emotionally-laden scene, and you have absolutely no idea who this character is, there's a problem. The biggest problem here is that all of the characters, except for Peter, were utterly forgettable.
Even COOPER, the love interest, did not stand out to me. He didn't have any character traits, except for having long blond hair that he never washed. Awesome.
And so it went with the rest of the characters, too: Charlton introduced a whole cast of characters that, like the premise, seemed more interesting than they ultimately were. They were forgettable, and two-dimensional, and I've already forgotten half of them even though I just finished this book five minutes ago.
I'm giving this category two stars solely because Peter, for what it's worth, was a well-rounded protagonist. Sure, he was kind of a useless dumbass a lot of the times, but he was likable enough. (Also, I want more soft boys who crochet even when the world is ending.)
WORLD BUILDING: 3 / 5
The world of Wranglestone is a dark, gritty one. Like most zombie stories, this world is trying to survive by keeping away from the so-called Pale Ones. Unlike most zombie stories, there was a clear plan here: US-American national parks were used as refuges for humans.
I loved that idea, and I generally enjoyed the setting and the descriptions. They were atmospheric and, had it not been for the confusing latter half of the novel that introduced some rather strange twists, one of the best parts of the book.
The one thing I can't stop wondering about, though, is what kind of physical laws operate in this world, because last time I checked, two teenage boys riding full-speed on the same horse for hours wasn't possible and severely detrimental to the horse's health. (In a Western saddle, no less.)
I'm confused.
WRITING STYLE: 2 / 5
Listen, I wish I could rate this higher, because let me tell you: [a:Darren Charlton|19385683|Darren Charlton|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] writes scary scenes unlike anything I've ever read. Those moments when Peter was fearing for his life got my heart pumping; they were filled with just the right amount of explicitly descriptive body horror and a sense of terrifying vagueness.
But all other scenes were absolutely exhausting to get through. I'm not a fan of Charlton's descriptive style; I don't particularly like his voice; and I detested that he used the words "Peter swung round" approximately a million times.
He also wrote one of my biggest pet peeves, which is when a character's accent is written phonetically. For that reason, I hated Cooper a little bit more every time he opened his mouth. I've said it before and I'll say it again: stop writing people's accents out because it's not funny, it's annoying.
Add to that another one of my pet peeves, which is male authors over-describing random (and kind of weird) actions such as scratching one's armpit or butt, and you can probably figure that I'm just not a fan.
DIVERSITY: 2.5 / 5
I'm really glad that Darren Charlton tried to tell a diverse story where the struggle was not, for once, found in a character's diversity. There's no tragic coming out story here, no struggling with one's gender or sexuality. Peter and Cooper are two gay boys in love, and that's that - simple as.
It was refreshing to read a book with queer characters that just were.
However, this book sadly lacked diversity in every other aspect. There were, as far as I could tell, no characters of color, no disabled characters, no neurodiverse characters, and only two LGBTQ+ characters - both gay white boys. Go figure.
What really irked me, though, was Wranglestone's absolutely abysmal portrayal of women. The female characters in this novel were wildly outnumbered by the male characters, for starters. There were, like, maybe four women in the entire book. One of these was bitten by a zombie and then executed; another was brutally and graphically murdered by zombies; the third was a traitor. Only one of them turned out half-way okay, and even that only after murdering one of the good guys.
Darren Charlton could have, and should have, done much better.
OVERALL RATING: 2 / 5
At first I wanted to rate this book three out of five stars, but the more I thought about it, the more annoyed I got. It gets its two stars solely for the "gay characters exist and it's cool", and the super-creepy scenes.
Other than that, I just did not really care that much about this book, which is a bummer, because I still think us gays deserve an awesome zombie-apocalypse-tale.
Well, dear friends, here's what I think in a nutshell:
I couldn't have said it better myself. But I'll try anyway:
PLOT: 1.5 / 5
When I first read the synposis of this book, I lost my shit - zombies? National parks? Queer boys fighting the zombie apocalypse? Perfect.
[b:Wranglestone|50049417|Wranglestone (Wranglestone, #1)|Darren Charlton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1572268074l/50049417._SX50_SY75_.jpg|72248036] had all the ingredients for what could have been one of my new favorite reads: gay representation, a gritty tale of survival against the beautiful backdrop of North American national parks, and zombies. I'm such a sucker for zombies, y'all.
Sadly, the premise was amazing - the story not so much. While I loved the first half of the book and flew through the pages in one day, I completely lost interest about halfway through. It took me nearly a week to read the last 150 pages alone. Somewhere halfway through, the story became too confusing, too twisted for me.
It felt a little like Charlton was trying to do too many things at once, and after one plot-twist too many, I couldn't really follow the story line anymore. I wish Charlton would have stuck with the much simpler, clearer plot that the first 150 pages laid out, instead of going wherever he went with it in the second half. (Don't ask me. I have no clue.)
CHARACTERS: 2 / 5
My second big issue with Wranglestone were its characters, because when one of the characters who was mentioned earlier shows up and reveals they're the villain in a tense, emotionally-laden scene, and you have absolutely no idea who this character is, there's a problem. The biggest problem here is that all of the characters, except for Peter, were utterly forgettable.
Even COOPER, the love interest, did not stand out to me. He didn't have any character traits, except for having long blond hair that he never washed. Awesome.
And so it went with the rest of the characters, too: Charlton introduced a whole cast of characters that, like the premise, seemed more interesting than they ultimately were. They were forgettable, and two-dimensional, and I've already forgotten half of them even though I just finished this book five minutes ago.
I'm giving this category two stars solely because Peter, for what it's worth, was a well-rounded protagonist. Sure, he was kind of a useless dumbass a lot of the times, but he was likable enough. (Also, I want more soft boys who crochet even when the world is ending.)
WORLD BUILDING: 3 / 5
The world of Wranglestone is a dark, gritty one. Like most zombie stories, this world is trying to survive by keeping away from the so-called Pale Ones. Unlike most zombie stories, there was a clear plan here: US-American national parks were used as refuges for humans.
I loved that idea, and I generally enjoyed the setting and the descriptions. They were atmospheric and, had it not been for the confusing latter half of the novel that introduced some rather strange twists, one of the best parts of the book.
The one thing I can't stop wondering about, though, is what kind of physical laws operate in this world, because last time I checked, two teenage boys riding full-speed on the same horse for hours wasn't possible and severely detrimental to the horse's health. (In a Western saddle, no less.)
I'm confused.
WRITING STYLE: 2 / 5
Listen, I wish I could rate this higher, because let me tell you: [a:Darren Charlton|19385683|Darren Charlton|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] writes scary scenes unlike anything I've ever read. Those moments when Peter was fearing for his life got my heart pumping; they were filled with just the right amount of explicitly descriptive body horror and a sense of terrifying vagueness.
But all other scenes were absolutely exhausting to get through. I'm not a fan of Charlton's descriptive style; I don't particularly like his voice; and I detested that he used the words "Peter swung round" approximately a million times.
He also wrote one of my biggest pet peeves, which is when a character's accent is written phonetically. For that reason, I hated Cooper a little bit more every time he opened his mouth. I've said it before and I'll say it again: stop writing people's accents out because it's not funny, it's annoying.
Add to that another one of my pet peeves, which is male authors over-describing random (and kind of weird) actions such as scratching one's armpit or butt, and you can probably figure that I'm just not a fan.
DIVERSITY: 2.5 / 5
I'm really glad that Darren Charlton tried to tell a diverse story where the struggle was not, for once, found in a character's diversity. There's no tragic coming out story here, no struggling with one's gender or sexuality. Peter and Cooper are two gay boys in love, and that's that - simple as.
It was refreshing to read a book with queer characters that just were.
However, this book sadly lacked diversity in every other aspect. There were, as far as I could tell, no characters of color, no disabled characters, no neurodiverse characters, and only two LGBTQ+ characters - both gay white boys. Go figure.
What really irked me, though, was Wranglestone's absolutely abysmal portrayal of women. The female characters in this novel were wildly outnumbered by the male characters, for starters. There were, like, maybe four women in the entire book. One of these was bitten by a zombie and then executed; another was brutally and graphically murdered by zombies; the third was a traitor. Only one of them turned out half-way okay, and even that only after murdering one of the good guys.
Darren Charlton could have, and should have, done much better.
OVERALL RATING: 2 / 5
At first I wanted to rate this book three out of five stars, but the more I thought about it, the more annoyed I got. It gets its two stars solely for the "gay characters exist and it's cool", and the super-creepy scenes.
Other than that, I just did not really care that much about this book, which is a bummer, because I still think us gays deserve an awesome zombie-apocalypse-tale.