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_chelseachelsea's reviews
98 reviews
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
challenging
dark
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Deeply upsetting and unbearably detailed, Tender is the Flesh presents a horrifically believable dystopia with no happy endings and no silver linings. The writing is gorgeous and the pace is fast - I read this over the course of a morning and spent the afternoon picking my jaw up from the floor.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Violence, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child death, Classism, Pregnancy, Murder, Torture, Trafficking, Gore, Grief, Slavery, Confinement, Death, Excrement, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death
That Weekend by Kara Thomas
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Something I really like about Kara Thomas is her skill for pacing. Many thrillers unfold too slowly - dragging out the mystery until the last possible second, then rushing through the explanation like a Bond villain - or too quickly, in a way that feels unrealistic and overly convenient. This was my second Thomas novel (the first being The Cheerleaders) and I continue to be impressed by the way she manages to balance tension with realism. That Weekend feels like a play, with a first act that lays out just enough information to draw you in, a second act that unravels with impeccable timing, and a finale that delivers satisfying answers. While the mystery isn’t necessarily jaw-droppingly clever or unique, I don’t think that’s a weakness. In fact, I‘m finding more and more as I read thriller after thriller that a believable story is infinitely harder to pull off than a ridiculous one.
For most of the book, I had a 4.25-4.5 star rating in mind. I loved the narrator, Claire, who we follow as she struggles to recall the events that led her to be found bloody and concussed on a mountain she doesn’t remember stepping foot on. Claire is smart, but stubborn. She is petty, but she cares. She feels like a real teenager, on the cusp of adulthood and unsure of who she wants to be. When her life is toppled by trauma her response to it feels true, not contrived, and when she starts digging for answers it’s not because she’s a scrappy hometown hero with a sudden burst of detective skills - it’s because she cannot move forward from her own grief without the answers she thinks will resolve it. Again, Thomas demonstrates a real understanding of loss.
The one complaint I have, which ultimately caused me to drop my rating to a 4.0, is that while the finale does give a satisfying resolution to the story - without tying it up too neatly in a way that feels cheap - there are a few “bonus” twists that I felt warranted more attention. One of my biggest pet peeves in a thriller or mystery is when a plot point feels rushed or thrown in at the last minute. By the time these shockers are dropped on us, the pages are drawing to a close. There’s no time to explore the meaning or impact of them. I found it frustrating that by the time we were really getting to learn more about these other characters, our time with them was over.
Outside of that peeve, That Weekend is an excellent novel about guilt, grief, and the burden of secrets - even the ones we must keep to protect ourselves.
For most of the book, I had a 4.25-4.5 star rating in mind. I loved the narrator, Claire, who we follow as she struggles to recall the events that led her to be found bloody and concussed on a mountain she doesn’t remember stepping foot on. Claire is smart, but stubborn. She is petty, but she cares. She feels like a real teenager, on the cusp of adulthood and unsure of who she wants to be. When her life is toppled by trauma her response to it feels true, not contrived, and when she starts digging for answers it’s not because she’s a scrappy hometown hero with a sudden burst of detective skills - it’s because she cannot move forward from her own grief without the answers she thinks will resolve it. Again, Thomas demonstrates a real understanding of loss.
The one complaint I have, which ultimately caused me to drop my rating to a 4.0, is that while the finale does give a satisfying resolution to the story - without tying it up too neatly in a way that feels cheap - there are a few “bonus” twists that I felt warranted more attention. One of my biggest pet peeves in a thriller or mystery is when a plot point feels rushed or thrown in at the last minute. By the time these shockers are dropped on us, the pages are drawing to a close. There’s no time to explore the meaning or impact of them. I found it frustrating that by the time we were really getting to learn more about these other characters, our time with them was over.
Outside of that peeve, That Weekend is an excellent novel about guilt, grief, and the burden of secrets - even the ones we must keep to protect ourselves.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Classism, Confinement, Grief, Incest, Medical content, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Violence, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Medical trauma, Murder, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Alcoholism, Blood, Drug use, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Child abuse, Mental illness, Trafficking, and Alcohol
None Shall Sleep by Ellie Marney
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Takes a while to really get going and severely lacks in action until the final chapters, but this teen-friendly crime novel was charming and entertaining enough to keep me on the hook.
My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
dark
emotional
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
After being pretty disappointed by The Final Girls Support Group, I’m happy to say this Hendrix novel was a winner. My Best Friend’s Exorcism is delightfully twisted, darkly funny, and surprisingly moving. It’s a nice blend of retro horror and coming-of-age flick that highlights Hendrix’s surprising talent for getting inside the heads of teenage girls.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Violence, Body horror, Blood, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Eating disorder, Gore, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Animal death, Sexual assault, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death of parent, Homophobia, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, and Forced institutionalization
Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I really enjoyed this one. It’s been a while since I read a thriller with great PACING (so many lately have felt endlessly slow) and Pieces of Her hits a real sweet-spot. Slaughter manages to balance the tone of both timelines quite well, so neither feels boring or arduous. Tense, darkly funny, and exciting enough to make me want to seek out more of her novels.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Classism, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Pregnancy, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Confinement, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Physical abuse, and Violence
The Lying Game by Ruth Ware
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? Yes
2.0
What. A. SNOOZER. Every time this book builds even a tiny bit of momentum, it stops cold. The “mystery” is barely a mystery, there’s almost no resolution by the end, and the stakes are so low it’s almost laughable. This is my third Ware novel and I’m so disappointed. In a Dark, Dark Wood was so great, and One By One was fairly entertaining with a great climax, but this one felt like a chore to trudge through.
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
It’s hard to digest this one. Some moments filled me with a deep sadness, others with an even deeper horror and disgust. If you are looking for a short story to twist your gut on a Saturday night, this is perfect. It is without question an excellent piece of fiction. But there was a glaring element of the story that really rubbed me the wrong way.
My biggest issue with this story is that it’s written by a male author, but the characters - Zoe and Agnes - are queer women. I would hardly imply that men are incapable of writing queer female characters, but when the sordid and twisted romance at the core of the story is between two queer women, it does beg the question as to whether Eric LaRocca is in any position to be writing it.
On one hand, the trope of the evil lesbian is tired and played out. On the other, Zoe and Agnes are unique in that both seem to be desperate for something that sounds better in fantasy than it does in reality, and neither is truly prepared for the fallout of what they’re asking for. It’s not so much a story about an evil lesbian manipulating a vulnerable young woman as it is a story about two strangers - who could almost be of any gender - toying with the bounds of codependency and pushing each other to the breaking point. It could have been about two men, or a man and a woman, and still played out the same way. However, there is no getting around the fact that LaRocca chose to use a queer relationship to tell this tale, and I find something very ugly about that.
I tried very hard not to let that ugliness influence my review too much. In terms of the story itself - the vivid descriptions provided in every email, the steadily increasing sense of dread that creeps in with every new instant message exchange - the writing is excellent. By limiting the narrative of the story to email and message conversations, we’re left in the dark about what the characters are thinking, saying, and doing while they were away from the screen. We don’t know who Zoe is, what she does for a living, or what her days look like when she’s not dominating her virtual slave. We don’t know what Agnes‘s relationship with her roommate is like, who she interacts with when she’s not emailing Zoe, or many of the details from her past that may have fed her seemingly irrational behavior over the course of the story. The reader is forced to answer those questions entirely on their own, and there is a lot of power in that.
LaRocca is remarkably well-paced, carefully threading small details throughout the novella, and he does it with the fluidity of a tennis match. The power shifts from one side of the relationship to the other very quickly, and just when you think you know the direction the story is headed in, LaRocca takes another sharp turn to the left or right. It’s jarring, it’s upsetting, and it’s indisputably impressive.
My biggest issue with this story is that it’s written by a male author, but the characters - Zoe and Agnes - are queer women. I would hardly imply that men are incapable of writing queer female characters, but when the sordid and twisted romance at the core of the story is between two queer women, it does beg the question as to whether Eric LaRocca is in any position to be writing it.
On one hand, the trope of the evil lesbian is tired and played out. On the other, Zoe and Agnes are unique in that both seem to be desperate for something that sounds better in fantasy than it does in reality, and neither is truly prepared for the fallout of what they’re asking for. It’s not so much a story about an evil lesbian manipulating a vulnerable young woman as it is a story about two strangers - who could almost be of any gender - toying with the bounds of codependency and pushing each other to the breaking point. It could have been about two men, or a man and a woman, and still played out the same way. However, there is no getting around the fact that LaRocca chose to use a queer relationship to tell this tale, and I find something very ugly about that.
I tried very hard not to let that ugliness influence my review too much. In terms of the story itself - the vivid descriptions provided in every email, the steadily increasing sense of dread that creeps in with every new instant message exchange - the writing is excellent. By limiting the narrative of the story to email and message conversations, we’re left in the dark about what the characters are thinking, saying, and doing while they were away from the screen. We don’t know who Zoe is, what she does for a living, or what her days look like when she’s not dominating her virtual slave. We don’t know what Agnes‘s relationship with her roommate is like, who she interacts with when she’s not emailing Zoe, or many of the details from her past that may have fed her seemingly irrational behavior over the course of the story. The reader is forced to answer those questions entirely on their own, and there is a lot of power in that.
LaRocca is remarkably well-paced, carefully threading small details throughout the novella, and he does it with the fluidity of a tennis match. The power shifts from one side of the relationship to the other very quickly, and just when you think you know the direction the story is headed in, LaRocca takes another sharp turn to the left or right. It’s jarring, it’s upsetting, and it’s indisputably impressive.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Body horror, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Mental illness, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Gore, and Grief
Minor: Vomit, Pregnancy, Suicide, and Homophobia
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This is the closest thing to a perfect novel I’ve ever read. I don’t even have enough words to describe it. Just read it, friends. Read it. You will be delighted, moved, stirred, and overjoyed.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Xenophobia and Religious bigotry
Minor: Child abuse
The Dark Tower I, Volume 1: The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.
So, so confusing. This book dragged at a snail’s pace and every time I tried to pick it up again, it felt like I needed to restart. I tried for like two years. Eventually it just wasn’t worth the effort.
One by One by Ruth Ware
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
One by One has a claustrophobic premise and a pleasantly diverse cast of characters, but veteran thriller readers will likely unravel the whodunnit mystery long before the killer is revealed.
I really, really like Ruth Ware’s writing style - she’s great at layering meaning behind dialogue and spreading exposition so her books don’t feel like a dumping ground. So when I started One by One, I was expecting a little more than what I got, which is a basic Orient Express-style story with characters who, while certainly more diverse than your typical thriller, were also pretty predictable.
I want to start with what’s good, because this is a perfectly good book. Ware has clearly spent time researching the history and language of her chosen setting, and it shows in both her descriptions and the dialogue between characters. The novel is quite immersive, so that by the end I nearly felt chilly myself.
The pace is just medium enough that I couldn’t rush through, but it rarely felt like it was dragging. Just when you think the pace is slowing, Ware gives a much-needed push to the next piece of action.
The other thing I liked was the setup of a young tech company grappling with financing, privacy, and morality against the backdrop of a luxurious ski resort. The best thrillers, in my opinion, provide stakes beyond the murder mystery. Our characters aren’t just threatened by a killer, or even the avalanche that’s trapped them - they are also threatened by the pressure of what waits for them back in the real world. These are people who just want to live the millennial dream and were clearly unprepared for the reality of running a business, and as their pristine, curated identities begin to crack, there are real people underneath. This, I think, sets Ware’s writing apart from other thriller authors. It’s hard to write likable jerks, but she manages to create humanity in even her most intolerable characters.
I think my dislikes really just boil down to narration problems. Ware writes this novel from only two POV’s. In a whodunnit, I think that’s a mistake. You know that your readers (especially those well-versed in thrillers) are going to cross examine every interaction, every internal piece of narration, looking for double-meaning and misdirects everywhere. With only two narrators, the magnifying glass is placed squarely on everything they say and do. This, I’m afraid, makes the killer’s identity glaringly obvious and the plot unpleasantly easy to predict.
I was about halfway through the novel when I figured it out - a single line of narration from one of the POV’s made it clear. If there had been more POV’s to get lost in, I might not have identified the “twist” so easily. I think thrillers with this kind of plot really need either ONE narrator (which Ware does very well in her first novel, In A Dark, Dark Wood) or they need several POV’s so you’re not inside the head of a single character for too long (Lucy Foley’s The Guest List is a recent read that achieves that goal in a really fun way).
Plot twist issues aside, I think this is a nice, moody read for those who like a mystery without too much gore or violence. And even though I knew who the killer was with over half the book left to go, trying to figure out the how and why was significantly harder and enough to keep me reading.
I really, really like Ruth Ware’s writing style - she’s great at layering meaning behind dialogue and spreading exposition so her books don’t feel like a dumping ground. So when I started One by One, I was expecting a little more than what I got, which is a basic Orient Express-style story with characters who, while certainly more diverse than your typical thriller, were also pretty predictable.
I want to start with what’s good, because this is a perfectly good book. Ware has clearly spent time researching the history and language of her chosen setting, and it shows in both her descriptions and the dialogue between characters. The novel is quite immersive, so that by the end I nearly felt chilly myself.
The pace is just medium enough that I couldn’t rush through, but it rarely felt like it was dragging. Just when you think the pace is slowing, Ware gives a much-needed push to the next piece of action.
The other thing I liked was the setup of a young tech company grappling with financing, privacy, and morality against the backdrop of a luxurious ski resort. The best thrillers, in my opinion, provide stakes beyond the murder mystery. Our characters aren’t just threatened by a killer, or even the avalanche that’s trapped them - they are also threatened by the pressure of what waits for them back in the real world. These are people who just want to live the millennial dream and were clearly unprepared for the reality of running a business, and as their pristine, curated identities begin to crack, there are real people underneath. This, I think, sets Ware’s writing apart from other thriller authors. It’s hard to write likable jerks, but she manages to create humanity in even her most intolerable characters.
I think my dislikes really just boil down to narration problems. Ware writes this novel from only two POV’s. In a whodunnit, I think that’s a mistake. You know that your readers (especially those well-versed in thrillers) are going to cross examine every interaction, every internal piece of narration, looking for double-meaning and misdirects everywhere. With only two narrators, the magnifying glass is placed squarely on everything they say and do. This, I’m afraid, makes the killer’s identity glaringly obvious and the plot unpleasantly easy to predict.
I was about halfway through the novel when I figured it out - a single line of narration from one of the POV’s made it clear. If there had been more POV’s to get lost in, I might not have identified the “twist” so easily. I think thrillers with this kind of plot really need either ONE narrator (which Ware does very well in her first novel, In A Dark, Dark Wood) or they need several POV’s so you’re not inside the head of a single character for too long (Lucy Foley’s The Guest List is a recent read that achieves that goal in a really fun way).
Plot twist issues aside, I think this is a nice, moody read for those who like a mystery without too much gore or violence. And even though I knew who the killer was with over half the book left to go, trying to figure out the how and why was significantly harder and enough to keep me reading.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, and Murder
Moderate: Alcohol, Violence, Grief, Toxic friendship, Blood, Sexual assault, and Gore