saintsnacky's reviews
63 reviews

The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf

dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean

challenging dark inspiring sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

The Perfect Family by Anya Mora

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Wow. This book is highly emotional. I cried every ten pages, my stomach hurt, my heart broke. This was by far the most tense book I’ve read all year. Ow, my heart. 

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Do You Remember by Freida McFadden

dark hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I love love love love this book. I got so attached to every character. I wish I could read this for the first time a million times over. This book is so beautiful. 

Run on Red by Noelle W. Ihli

tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

I found this book super repetitive. It’s such a great story and premise but didn’t knock it out of the park for me. It was good, but I didn’t love it. 

The Thicket by Noelle W. Ihli

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

So I just think I’m not a super big fan of Ihli’s writing style, but her stories are on point. 
This story followed the story of 3 best friends and I find them adorablely young, vivacious and relatable. I found the bad guy to be creepy in all the right ways (the fly thing? Creepy touch and I loved it) 

The writing style is a bit repetitive, so it took me a month to power through this book, but the story was good! 

Bloodline by Jess Lourey

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This book starts off with a bang, I was super hopeful that this book would be unsettling and an absolute wild ride. The book is truly unsettling, a true small town nightmare. The plot and unfolding of the plot was generally mid. There isn’t really a twist, it’s pretty clear where the story is going to go. I enjoyed reading this and I genuinely liked Joan, the main character. I would read a sequal about the adventure of the “after”. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Incest, Gaslighting, Child abuse, and Ableism