A review by leahopkins
Sundial by Catriona Ward

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

5.0

I picked this book up more by chance, but I am really glad I did. It is less of a horror book and more of a slightly bizarre thriller with some paranormal tones (?), but it was still captivating from start to finish!
The characters are all very fleshed out and layered, they are all pretty unlikable (except maybe Mia), and literally none of them are good people. Still, you can understand why they do the shit they do (to some extent at least), so that made me hate them less.
There are so many themes/images used again throughout the story (mirrors, maggots, clocks) which made the whole writing very cohesive. The author was also very good at leaving small clues everywhere (especially in the Arrowood chapters), but mixing them up with red herrings. I was so captured, putting tabs on everything I thought was important to the plot, and writing down all my new theories. Most of them were wrong. But I loved going through all of my notes again and understanding what they were really alluding to.
Most of the twists were very surprising, but made so much sense at the same time (I said "ohhhh" way too many times). The only twist I really didn't like was the last one (
aka Annie being the evil child and not Callie
), I felt like it undid a lot of what the author had established before. I almost lowered the rating because of this, but since it was literally just in the last chapter, I decided to just pretend like it never happened. At some points, I also thought the overall topic of what is happening at Sundial seemed a little far-fetched, but reading the Author's note and seeing it was based on actual events, I feel like that critique can't hold itself. Overall, there were a couple of those little moments where I thought "is this realistic?", so maybe 5 stars is a little too generous of me, but I really, really enjoyed the reading experience, so I feel like they are justified.

 
Also I have a theory I will not budge on and that I just need to put out somewhere: Callie kept talking about Rob touching her eyes as if adjusting contact lenses, even though she doesn't wear them. And in one chapter, it says something about Rob thinking about getting coloured contacts and just continue living as Jack. I don't care what anyone says, I think Rob is actually Jack who just pretends to be Rob, because Rob was killed by 23. I will die on that hill. 


PS: please note the content warnings because there are a lot!!
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