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A review by gilroi
Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read an ARC in return for a fair review.
This book is trying to do something tremendous, and, mostly, it succeeds. Its failings are small things, niggling complaints about pacing and length. I'd give this book a 4.75 if possible, because it's just short of absolutely perfect. A lot of the dramatic weight could have been improved by either having fewer main characters, or more room in the book to flesh those characters out. This book is a response to Stephen King's IT, and that book is famously enormous; while this book doesn't need to be a doorstopper, it could have benefitted from a few extra pounds.
All that said, it's thematically and emotionally immaculate. The mood shifts between Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the works of Alison Rumfitt, and IT, yet it manages to entirely original. The book really comes into its own as the voices of its main cast emerge and flourish, and perhaps selfishly I wanted more time to sit with them. However, the very action-oriented horror suits this book well, and the buckling conclusion is as heartrending as it is satisfying.
This book is trying to do something tremendous, and, mostly, it succeeds. Its failings are small things, niggling complaints about pacing and length. I'd give this book a 4.75 if possible, because it's just short of absolutely perfect. A lot of the dramatic weight could have been improved by either having fewer main characters, or more room in the book to flesh those characters out. This book is a response to Stephen King's IT, and that book is famously enormous; while this book doesn't need to be a doorstopper, it could have benefitted from a few extra pounds.
All that said, it's thematically and emotionally immaculate. The mood shifts between Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the works of Alison Rumfitt, and IT, yet it manages to entirely original. The book really comes into its own as the voices of its main cast emerge and flourish, and perhaps selfishly I wanted more time to sit with them. However, the very action-oriented horror suits this book well, and the buckling conclusion is as heartrending as it is satisfying.