connorcashcolbert's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Animal death, Gore, Body horror, and Violence
Moderate: Homophobia and Child abuse
natalee_martino's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Murder, Violence, Bullying, Gore, and Toxic relationship
mitchvandiver's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Murder, Homophobia, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Gore, Bullying, and Violence
eternaldaydreams's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Death, Body horror, Gore, Homophobia, Violence, Bullying, and Gaslighting
laceej88's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Violence, Gore, and Homophobia
Moderate: Child abuse
abbennsky's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Graphic: Murder and Violence
saric7's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, and Homophobia
Moderate: Violence
Spoiler
child deathbimeariver's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
i am....utterly obsessed with the author's writing in this. i'm obsessed with stories with unreliable narrators and characters who are deeply fucked up and ambigious endings that feel like drowning because that's all the story is, it's these characters drowning in a death of their own making because as one character said here, death is something everyone carries with them, and it's because awareness of death is not like a logic that grows in all directions at once, but a condition that is always with us, waiting to float like a body to the surface . . . because death is like memory and memory is like love. and they are all three like a snake swallowing its own tail. becoming itself to destroy itself.
the story at first really just baffled me because of the tone of it, the way these characters were interacting in these dual timelines that clash so harshly and felt like some psychological mindgame as being the reader, i had to try to put the pieces together of something that was irrevocably broken in todd's mind. i can't even be sure to say that this story is for todd's to tell because it feels like there were so many fragments hidden that only certain other characters could really help unfold; such as like with anthony, jack, elaine, and livia's voices, to name a few.
the way the story was split into different parts was absolute genius but it will never live up to the utter shock that was the end of part 1 and i'll be carrying that surprise all the way to the end of the year because this story wasn't even supposed to happen. i never knew it existed a little over 24 hours ago as i'm writing this, and now it's going to be stuck in my head forever??
Graphic: Bullying, Murder, Body horror, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Animal death and Violence
gnoumenon's review
4.5
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Child abuse
readundancies's review
4.75
And this story? This story was all of that. It was dark and isolating and desolate and I really was unnerved by the chilling tone of it all. This was something that I was greatly anticipating and is definitely one of my favourite releases of this year.
So much so that since the copy I initially read was from the library, I had to go above and beyond and make a detour on my way home from some errands today just so I could stop by the bookstore and pick up a physical copy of my own.
For a debut novel, Conner Habib excels at spinning a narrative that is tormentingly cyclical. This was a story where history repeated itself in the most bizarrely destructive and yet beautiful ways; through bullying and gaslighting and child abuse, we as readers get to experience a character in Todd who is both victim and villain. The themes and discourse surrounding sexual identity, parenting, obsession and manipulation were threaded so naturally between Jack and Todd’s shared past in high school and their reunion years later in the present timeline. And I genuinely couldn’t get enough of it. There’s something so fulfilling to me about a tale that focuses on vicious circles; where the tragic nature of comedy is twisted so that a main character can’t help but try to break out of a cycle of struggle, consequences be damned, but all their efforts are futile and they find themselves right back were they started at the beginning. With a different author, I think this story had the potential to become trite where it was grim and exaggerated where it was tense, but Habib managed to create this undercurrent of unease that I couldn’t ignore. I had to pace myself with the first part of this novel because the content became heavy very quickly for me. And yet once the major plot twist came into play, I could not get through the rest of the story fast enough. I was hooked.
And the prose itself was just haunting. Todd was not particularly likeable, but his introspective nature and his traumatic experience in high school set him up to be such a fascinating character. He was incredibly flawed and broken and the worst parts of himself rose to the surface when presented with Jack, the face of his childhood trauma. He was also completely at odds with his sexual identity and some internalized homophobia and it was never explicitly addressed by the end of the story, but all of that was just another strength to me because the story was never supposed to amount to any sort of resolution. And it never does.
Instead, the ending dives into it’s title and absolutely knocks it out of the park because the parallels! It’s taken me a couple of days for it to really sink in but the more I think about it, the more I appreciate the ending and how the pace of this novel was constructed. The full circle moment of what happened on Hawk Mountain and the climax of Jack and Todd’s reunion twenty or so odd years later was just so well executed.
This was by no means a fun read, and definitely has content that will be triggering to many people, especially since there is a fair amount of gore. This is literary noir with a side of horror and a sprinkling of thriller and suspense. It’s got an almost constant psychological manipulation at play and this sense of isolation in both the setting and in Todd that I just couldn’t shake.
And what slightly blows my mind is that I know it in my core that in another universe, this was a romance about first love instead.
Now I don’t think I personally needed Livia’s perspective or Anthony’s to be honest, no matter how brief his was. But I cannot express how much this story has stayed with me and impacted my mood upon finishing it. It’s put me straight into a book hangover and despite me being in a reading funk now, I do not regret it one bit.
So if you’re in the mood for a book that will haunt you long after you finish lingering within it’s pages, do not hesitate to pick this one up. It was darkly disturbing and I mean that as a genuine compliment because it fucked me up good. I will definitely be on the lookout for whatever Conner Habib comes out with next.
Graphic: Gore, Medical content, and Violence
Moderate: Physical abuse, Stalking, Homophobia, Grief, Bullying, Murder, Gaslighting, Death, Child abuse, and Alcohol