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A review by august_ambrosia
Sixteen Souls by Rosie Talbot
5.0
HELLL YEAHHH THIS WAS A GOOD FREAKIN BOOK!!!! hooked from the start - the worldbuilding was lovely and thought out and i only have two tiiiny criticisms that arent really criticisms more just observations that i think could do with some work.
ok. lets start from the beginning. DISABLED PROTAG!!!! QUEER DISABLED PROTAG!!!! and what a lovely lad he is :) i thoroughly enjoyed his dynamic with his disability and his family and his queerness!!! thank goodness FINALLY a queer character whose internal conflict isnt about his queerness!!! even mitch who was sort of ambiguous didnt seem to be conflicted or anguished over finding his specific label AND AWWW SAM!!! LOVELY SAMUEL <3333 ADORED!!!
ok thats my superficial gushing over. i gave the five stars because this book was just plain good. the worldbuilding was great, the mystery kept you hooked and the plot twists fully made sense and felt grounded and sensible even though theyre just!! about ghosts!!! i loved the way that ghosts could touch seers and not regular folk. that really was a lovely detail and made a lot of sense AND helped the story along in a very clever way. AND the whole revelation about how seers are made!!!! a life for a life!!!! a love for a love!!!! how BEAUTIFUL.
tiny gripes: i thought generally the horror of deathloops was dealt with very well, i particularly enjoyed how the seer would be trapped in it with the individual if they didnt know how to get out by physically dying the same death. that was very good. i liked that a LOT. however, i thought the general ideas of grief were not dealt with nearly with enough gravity as i would have liked. charlie seems horrified and traumatised by the deathloop and rightfully so!! his trauma blocking fully makes sense. i get that. i thought that sam didnt have the same weight to his grief about luci or his dad. in any other story i would criticise the sudden murder of mr harrow but in this one it made sense. i also liked how caleb gates wasnt (as far as i recall) referred to with "insane" terms, even though to all rights he was definitely not thinking straight. thank you very much miss talbot for not being ableist <3 that paragraph was more praise than gripe but its ok
second thing: i thought this was sort of funny actually. it felt like talbot skipped over some scenes that would have required a bit too much action or emotional outpouring (eg the scene where charlie gets in a car to escape crew-cut and the scene where heather tells him how he became a seer. and the end scene where charlie and sam are crushed by the harrow's house instead of us seeing how gates is defeated. i guess you assume hes also crushed but i thought that was a convenient part to leave out) also i could be entirely wrong about those spots because that could easily be just the way the story goes. but at those spots (i dont think there was any others) i could tell this was a debut novel, but because i am somewhat of a writer myself it just made me smile because i would do the exact same thing. hehe.
and now to cancel out the negativity i will say my favourite parts: sam being trans, the reveal about rawley. villiers !!!!!!!, AUDREY/RACHEL!!!!, sam just in general, charlie just in general, charlies getaway scene from the part where his sister asks if hes killed anyone to where he gets out of the nice lady's car, CHARLIES LITTLE SISTERS <3333 absolutely adored every moment they were on the page i need a whole sequel just for them tbh.., the LOVELY scene at the end where charlie is thanked by all the ghosts and has to try not to cry (OK ACTUALLY I WAS SO SAD ABOUT THE TEENAGERS IN RIPPED JEANSSSS PART IN THIS AAAA POOR THINGS!!!!), the river scene!!!! theres so many ghosts!!!!!!, the second scene with ophelia, the first kiss!!!!, the second kiss!!!!!, the last kiss!!!!!!, LEONIE!!!!! i also need a spinoff starring her thank you very much, MITCH!!!! i absolutely NEED the scene where he beats up charlies bully it is vital to my wellbeing THANK YOU
i realise i have basically just said everything that happens. well. that is true also. this review got long. READ THIS BOOK!!! i will be recommending and buying a copy myself to annotate all over <3 peace and love
ok. lets start from the beginning. DISABLED PROTAG!!!! QUEER DISABLED PROTAG!!!! and what a lovely lad he is :) i thoroughly enjoyed his dynamic with his disability and his family and his queerness!!! thank goodness FINALLY a queer character whose internal conflict isnt about his queerness!!! even mitch who was sort of ambiguous didnt seem to be conflicted or anguished over finding his specific label AND AWWW SAM!!! LOVELY SAMUEL <3333 ADORED!!!
ok thats my superficial gushing over. i gave the five stars because this book was just plain good. the worldbuilding was great, the mystery kept you hooked and the plot twists fully made sense and felt grounded and sensible even though theyre just!! about ghosts!!! i loved the way that ghosts could touch seers and not regular folk. that really was a lovely detail and made a lot of sense AND helped the story along in a very clever way. AND the whole revelation about how seers are made!!!! a life for a life!!!! a love for a love!!!! how BEAUTIFUL.
tiny gripes: i thought generally the horror of deathloops was dealt with very well, i particularly enjoyed how the seer would be trapped in it with the individual if they didnt know how to get out by physically dying the same death. that was very good. i liked that a LOT. however, i thought the general ideas of grief were not dealt with nearly with enough gravity as i would have liked. charlie seems horrified and traumatised by the deathloop and rightfully so!! his trauma blocking fully makes sense. i get that. i thought that sam didnt have the same weight to his grief about luci or his dad. in any other story i would criticise the sudden murder of mr harrow but in this one it made sense. i also liked how caleb gates wasnt (as far as i recall) referred to with "insane" terms, even though to all rights he was definitely not thinking straight. thank you very much miss talbot for not being ableist <3 that paragraph was more praise than gripe but its ok
second thing: i thought this was sort of funny actually. it felt like talbot skipped over some scenes that would have required a bit too much action or emotional outpouring (eg the scene where charlie gets in a car to escape crew-cut and the scene where heather tells him how he became a seer. and the end scene where charlie and sam are crushed by the harrow's house instead of us seeing how gates is defeated. i guess you assume hes also crushed but i thought that was a convenient part to leave out) also i could be entirely wrong about those spots because that could easily be just the way the story goes. but at those spots (i dont think there was any others) i could tell this was a debut novel, but because i am somewhat of a writer myself it just made me smile because i would do the exact same thing. hehe.
and now to cancel out the negativity i will say my favourite parts: sam being trans, the reveal about rawley. villiers !!!!!!!, AUDREY/RACHEL!!!!, sam just in general, charlie just in general, charlies getaway scene from the part where his sister asks if hes killed anyone to where he gets out of the nice lady's car, CHARLIES LITTLE SISTERS <3333 absolutely adored every moment they were on the page i need a whole sequel just for them tbh.., the LOVELY scene at the end where charlie is thanked by all the ghosts and has to try not to cry (OK ACTUALLY I WAS SO SAD ABOUT THE TEENAGERS IN RIPPED JEANSSSS PART IN THIS AAAA POOR THINGS!!!!), the river scene!!!! theres so many ghosts!!!!!!, the second scene with ophelia, the first kiss!!!!, the second kiss!!!!!, the last kiss!!!!!!, LEONIE!!!!! i also need a spinoff starring her thank you very much, MITCH!!!! i absolutely NEED the scene where he beats up charlies bully it is vital to my wellbeing THANK YOU
i realise i have basically just said everything that happens. well. that is true also. this review got long. READ THIS BOOK!!! i will be recommending and buying a copy myself to annotate all over <3 peace and love