toastrats's reviews
40 reviews

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

2.5

Ania Ahlborn has beautiful, vivid writing and knows how to turn your stomach in the gore moments. It's a fun creature feature that is very reminiscent of Until Dawn (although I realize the book predates the release of the game), so if you want something a little mindless with a high death toll and scary monsters, this is the book.

I think the characters were very unlikable and the way April's story and writing were handled was disappointing. The ending wasn't particularly satisfying and had me feeling frustrated with the decisions of the cast. The emotional weight of some of the big moments failed to land because I just didn't really care about these characters.

Also, you can tell the author really likes the phrase "set his teeth on edge".

Content Warnings

The Shining by Stephen King

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 32%.

I really wanted to like this book, I REALLY did. I love sci-fi, I love horror, I love female protags, I love a good mystery... it had all the makings of something I would love.

Pros:

The idea is very cool. Like, really a compelling idea. A luxury spaceship that went missing is suddenly found just outside the solar system by a small maintenance crew. No one knows what happened and the scene inside the ship doesn't immediately offer answers.
Rag-tag team of misfits.
The atmosphere and tension is great. It felt so eerie the first time they sat foot on the ship.

Cons:

The narrator is actually unbearable. She is so full of self loathing and trauma that she has made seemingly NO progress on the past 22 years. It dominates EVERY scene. She's constantly deep in an internal monologue about how much she hates herself and how everything is her fault (she was a literal child) to the extreme detriment of the story pacing. It's hard to feel like we are moving forward narratively when we keep retreading the same ground with her self loathing literally every scene.
It's also very heavy handed in TELLING us everything, especially background info. Their techie will handily dump exposition whenever we need it and people constantly have to explain things to the lead because she didn't grow up on Earth. Like, homegirl has never heard of the French Revolution because she... grew up on a colony... of people originally from earth. We're never given an opportunity to SEE Claire is traumatized or that her life was hard because she is so busy TELLING US every other page.
The character work is very thin. The supporting cast is one dimensional, trope heavy archetypes.
There is a romance subplot. I am a sucker for romance stories but it could not be more out of place. Claire, how can you possibly find time to wax poetic about Kane's strong chest and your yearning between hating yourself and, you know, checking out THE GREATEST MYSTERY OF THE CENTURY?
The author plays pretty fast and loose with what existing in a vacuum for 20 years would be like. It's dicey science I would normally suspend my disbelief over, but with everything else...

And finally, what made me DNF this book was I had a large element of the end spoiled for me. I was willing to slog through it for the payoff of solving this supernatural mystery but

the author chooses to give everything a man-made explanation in what has ostensibly been a supernatural horror this whole time. This is one of my biggest pet peeves and would have been an EASY 1 star because it makes getting through the rest of it meaningless.

I am ultimately thankful that was spoiled for me because I would have crawled up the walls in fury.

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced