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A review by ravencrantz
The May Queen Murders by Sarah Jude
1.0
It's October, I've been in a terrible reading slump, and I needed something really spooky to try and draw me out. Horror in general is a tricky genre, and I've only found a handful of books over the years that have truly spooked me. I was still hopeful about this book, until I went to add it to my shelf and noticed the rating. I try not to take ratings too seriously, but in this case it should have served as a warning.
The blurb pitches us a mystery of a missing girl after a big celebration, but that doesn't even happen until well after 100 pages into the book. Up until then it's nothing but boy trouble and dead animals. It got old fast, and I kept wanting to ditch this book, but I pushed through in hopes the ending would make up for it. I know horror and thrillers can be a slow in the beginning. They have so much to set up, it's going to drag a bit. This was Too Much. There was no real set up for the reveals, they were all thrown together in one big lazy climax. One after another we were told who the Real killer was and each one revealed, no actually it was some other guy. All in all, about five different people were accused of being the killer. That doesn't sound too bad, except all but thee obvious red herring was revealed in the last 60 or so pages.
This book has a clear pacing problem, and in a thriller/horror novel, that's a huge deal breaker. On top of it all, it used a character being gay as a plot twist and on top of that, the character died. So two strikes there. This book left me so frustrated it had so much potential and it fell so flat.
I can't speak on the diversity front. Our main character is mixed race, with a mother from Mexico. I don't know if this was done well or in an offensive way, but I do know that our main character didn't grow much. She's so obsessed with her cousin, it's borderline creepy. Her cousin is the only one to call her out on this, but in the end nothing changes! Sure her cousin isn't around anymore, but she's still obsessing over her life. I'm willing to leave it as grief, but given how no one else was really fleshed out, I think it's simply a characterization problem.
Overall disappointing and a waste of time. Might read something else by the author if I happen upon it at the library, but I'm not going to seek anything out.
The blurb pitches us a mystery of a missing girl after a big celebration, but that doesn't even happen until well after 100 pages into the book. Up until then it's nothing but boy trouble and dead animals. It got old fast, and I kept wanting to ditch this book, but I pushed through in hopes the ending would make up for it. I know horror and thrillers can be a slow in the beginning. They have so much to set up, it's going to drag a bit. This was Too Much. There was no real set up for the reveals, they were all thrown together in one big lazy climax. One after another we were told who the Real killer was and each one revealed, no actually it was some other guy. All in all, about five different people were accused of being the killer. That doesn't sound too bad, except all but thee obvious red herring was revealed in the last 60 or so pages.
This book has a clear pacing problem, and in a thriller/horror novel, that's a huge deal breaker. On top of it all, it used a character being gay as a plot twist and on top of that, the character died. So two strikes there. This book left me so frustrated it had so much potential and it fell so flat.
I can't speak on the diversity front. Our main character is mixed race, with a mother from Mexico. I don't know if this was done well or in an offensive way, but I do know that our main character didn't grow much. She's so obsessed with her cousin, it's borderline creepy. Her cousin is the only one to call her out on this, but in the end nothing changes! Sure her cousin isn't around anymore, but she's still obsessing over her life. I'm willing to leave it as grief, but given how no one else was really fleshed out, I think it's simply a characterization problem.
Overall disappointing and a waste of time. Might read something else by the author if I happen upon it at the library, but I'm not going to seek anything out.