A review by turninpages_sippintea
Craven Manor by Darcy Coates

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

2.5

I didn't think it was a bad book (2/3 of it were actually pretty interesting), it just wasn't for me. 

I could empathise with the main character up to a certain point, and then he just kept making really weird choices instead of, I don't know, asking questions directly or buying a phone and at least trying to get the information himself. Daniel was a horrendous judge of character, but the book reminded me of his age on its last pages, so I suppose being so naive would make a bit of sense for him. I also personally didn't like the inconsistencies 

• (when Daniel met Bran for the first time in the dining room, he commented on how Bran couldn't be a ghost because he was making sounds by moving in the armchair, but then how could Annalyse tap on his house every night? 
  he also heard tapping on top of his cottage - was Annalyse... flying? 
  the handprint he discovered on his window was much larger than his own hand's, but Annalyse was 12 when she died, and her abnormally large hands were never mentioned, so who left the print, then? 
  if Eliza was suppressing her powers her whole life and was conscious of it because she didn't allow doctors to examine her, why did she then assume that the famine was her daughter's fault and not hers? she was shy and meek her whole life until THAT moment? the villagers just... persuaded her somehow to sacrifice her daughter whom she doted on? 
  Bran compared Eliza to himself when he said that she was stuck between life and death, but unlike him, she literally died, her skeleton is in the garden, how on earth was she keeping any corporeal form? 
  when Daniel asked what to do with that newfound skeleton before he'd met Bran in person, how did Bran send him the letter so quickly? like, even if he was in his shadow form, where was he keeping the paper and the pen? 
  AND! he just... made rain happen in the end?????? that was by far the most random "oh by the way I have this super convenient power that was never mentioned before lol nbg" moment),

and they overshadowed my enjoyment of the book.