A review by halierivers
Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.25

I really struggled with what to rate this. On one hand it was such a great concept and the images inside were a unique addition I enjoyed. On top of that, this book is a bestseller. 

It feels like I missed a memo because I not only didn’t like it. I had a handful of problems that stood out to me besides pacing and having way too many unnecessary details and scenes that didn’t need to be there. The big thing was it felt like this author was demonizing “liberal” parents with
absolute extremes to the point of forcing transgenderism on a child and talking to a five year old about anal sex


There was also some overt and unnecessary racism in this book. And weird Christian rhetoric. It almost didn’t seem intentional, but it was distracting none the less since the story would have been perfectly fine without these two things shoved in there. 

The ending was (again) such an interesting idea but it was almost impossible to overlook the amount of time wasted getting there. The ghost reveal part, not the gender part. This book had a few cool ideas just done so poorly. I will not be picking up this author again. Not when there are so many better thrillers/mysteries out there. 

Also I advise avoiding this book if you struggle with gender dysphoria of any type as the author definitely slid some not so covert transphobia in there. 
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