A review by mudlizard
The Cipher by Kathe Koja

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

3.0

it took me a bit to get used to the prose but once I got into it it was fun. (I even ended up reading it out loud to myself quite a bit lol.) however this could've been a good chunk shorter and probably would've worked better as a novella or even a short story because it does meander a lot. And even as I got used to the poetic style, there were quite a few moments that were incredibly difficult to parse. There are some really hard hitting moments and some fun dreadful icky gross and cosmic horror that i like. Unfortunately I feel uneasy about some of the typical 90s 'isms, but the way it's written makes the intent hard to pin so... I am curious about Koja's other adult works after this though.