Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Where the Dead Wait

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes

4 reviews

judassilver's review

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challenging dark informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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outsmartyourshelf's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

3.75

William Day was part of an expedition, to find the fabled Open Polar Sea, which ended in disaster. Many of the men died of scurvy & the survivors only managed to hang on by becoming cannibals & eating their dead shipmates. As the last surviving officer, Day took most of the blame & opprobrium being nicknamed 'Eat 'em Fresh' Day. Thirteen years later, Day is offered a chance at redemption, to go find his second-in-command from that ill-fated voyage, who has gone missing in the same area. Jesse Stevens was Day's bunkmate & closest friend - perhaps more. Day sets sail with a new crew, a reporter, & Stevens' wife - a spiritualist who claims she can communicate with the dead. Day has his own run-ins with the dead who haunt him, but as they get closer to their destination, violence & death once again circle ever closer.

This was a difficult book to rate. There are a lot of positives: I thought the author conveyed the claustrophobic feeling of being stuck onboard a ship for months, & the despair of those who know they are unlikely to live to return home. I felt as if I was there. Pace-wise it was a little uneven as some parts of the book seemed to fly by whilst others crawled at a snail's pace. My main issue was impatience with the main character though as it seemed to take him forever to snap out of the spell that he was under with regards to Stevens & see the true character of the man. If you enjoyed Dan Simmons' 'The Terror' you'd probably like this book. I've read both & I'm actually rating this one slightly higher.

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Titan Books, for the opportunity to read an ARC. I am voluntarily giving an honest review.

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blacksphinx's review

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This book is a tour de force of helpless dread, gore, death, and cannibalism (but if you're here just for the eating people part, after the first chapter we don't really see it in depth until the ~50% mark). Something spine chilling seemed to happen every couple of pages in a way that made the book hard to put down. Even when it frustrated me, the imagery it painted lived behind my eyes when I'd try to sleep at night!

But it misses the mark in a two main ways that stop me from giving it the full five stars. I felt like the book flip flopped on

if something supernatural was happening

in a way that was disappointing to me. Our PoV character is not a reliable narrator, and sometimes when ambiguous "things" are happening, it's all so jumbled up it became more confusing than scary. And in a book where so many characters die, some of the ones who lived felt too unbelievable. It doesn't help that one of those characters is someone I just never understood what on earth their motivation was or why they acted the way they did.

I think I'm going to reread this book at some point in the future, maybe next winter when the winds really being to howl, and reassess how I feel about it.

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apairofducks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book is absolutely fantastic. I had high hopes after All the White Spaces, and Ally Wilkes more than delivered. The characters were fantastic, the conflicts ached, and the Arctic setting chilled me to the bone despite reading this book in a sweltering July.

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