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A review by kaelaceleste
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
1.0
I really really did not want to give this book one star so I initially put it at 2 but as I wrote the review I realized I actively dreaded reading and finishing this so much that it would be dishonest to rate it higher lmao
Woof!!!!!!!!!!! What was this!
I started off really into this. The concept is cool and interesting, I love a mystery. And maybe I am just not smart enough to understand it all but yall. This book was SO CONFUSING. About 20% in I started to get so confused with the number of characters and things happening that I looked up chapter summaries and I should have known then and just put the book down. But it seems so promising!, I thought, so I continued. My mistake!
Now that I have finished I can be honest and tell you that I was truly completely lost for probably 3/4 of the book, and the only reason I REMOTELY was able to follow the plot was because I looked up spoilers. The author was just trying to do way too much. There were too many characters, red herrings, plot lines that didn’t make sense…
Speaking of the characters, I didn’t like any of them! The main character Aiden had absolutely no personality traits and was also very stupid! I won’t elaborate on the others because they all sucked and made no sense to the point that I couldn’t tell you any distinguishing characteristics.
Also I don’t normally like to comment on writing styles because I don’t want to make it seem like a personal attack on the author, because sometimes things are maybe not my cup of tea…but this was just not written well. I read somewhere that the author wrote the ending first and then filled in the blanks and girl you can tell. It is glaringly obvious that they were trying to be more complicated than they needed to in an attempt to be interesting and come to the conclusion they wanted, and for that reason it was just Plot Hole City. It also actively felt like WORK to read this because of all the ridiculous language. It felt so pretentious. This is the kind of book you have to be actively paying attention to every moment you’re reading so you don’t miss a minute-but-important detail, and maybe it's just personal preference that I hate that but I zoned out extremely often and just did not have fun reading.
Like I said, I dreaded finishing this and considered giving it up at multiple points, including when I had less than 10% left, but decided I had put in too many hours at that point to finish (damn you, sunk cost fallacy!). I actually hated it more every moment I spent reading it. I put it off for so long that my library loan was auto-returned at 92% and I ALMOST didn’t bother finishing it. But I did that so you don’t have to. That’s how selfless I am as a person (I’m actually just incredibly stubborn to the point of being a hindrance).
I also was VERY taken aback by the amount of body-shaming in the various hosts, and really surprised that so few reviews commented on this. It just felt extremely heavy-handed like “wow it’s so hard to exist as a FAT PERSON WOW!! This person’s life really sucks because they’re fat!” idk. It felt really gross to me.
So to recap. This was overly convoluted but also boring, with bad characters, plot holes, and just a lot of things that didn’t make sense. I wanted to like it SO BAD because I thought the concept sounded awesome and I love mysteries. But it just didn’t do it for me luv!
Woof!!!!!!!!!!! What was this!
I started off really into this. The concept is cool and interesting, I love a mystery. And maybe I am just not smart enough to understand it all but yall. This book was SO CONFUSING. About 20% in I started to get so confused with the number of characters and things happening that I looked up chapter summaries and I should have known then and just put the book down. But it seems so promising!, I thought, so I continued. My mistake!
Now that I have finished I can be honest and tell you that I was truly completely lost for probably 3/4 of the book, and the only reason I REMOTELY was able to follow the plot was because I looked up spoilers. The author was just trying to do way too much. There were too many characters, red herrings, plot lines that didn’t make sense…
Speaking of the characters, I didn’t like any of them! The main character Aiden had absolutely no personality traits and was also very stupid! I won’t elaborate on the others because they all sucked and made no sense to the point that I couldn’t tell you any distinguishing characteristics.
Also I don’t normally like to comment on writing styles because I don’t want to make it seem like a personal attack on the author, because sometimes things are maybe not my cup of tea…but this was just not written well. I read somewhere that the author wrote the ending first and then filled in the blanks and girl you can tell. It is glaringly obvious that they were trying to be more complicated than they needed to in an attempt to be interesting and come to the conclusion they wanted, and for that reason it was just Plot Hole City. It also actively felt like WORK to read this because of all the ridiculous language. It felt so pretentious. This is the kind of book you have to be actively paying attention to every moment you’re reading so you don’t miss a minute-but-important detail, and maybe it's just personal preference that I hate that but I zoned out extremely often and just did not have fun reading.
Like I said, I dreaded finishing this and considered giving it up at multiple points, including when I had less than 10% left, but decided I had put in too many hours at that point to finish (damn you, sunk cost fallacy!). I actually hated it more every moment I spent reading it. I put it off for so long that my library loan was auto-returned at 92% and I ALMOST didn’t bother finishing it. But I did that so you don’t have to. That’s how selfless I am as a person (I’m actually just incredibly stubborn to the point of being a hindrance).
I also was VERY taken aback by the amount of body-shaming in the various hosts, and really surprised that so few reviews commented on this. It just felt extremely heavy-handed like “wow it’s so hard to exist as a FAT PERSON WOW!! This person’s life really sucks because they’re fat!” idk. It felt really gross to me.
So to recap. This was overly convoluted but also boring, with bad characters, plot holes, and just a lot of things that didn’t make sense. I wanted to like it SO BAD because I thought the concept sounded awesome and I love mysteries. But it just didn’t do it for me luv!