eternaldaydreams's review
dark
sad
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? Yes
4.75
absolutely soul crushing and bleak. i spiraled once i finally finished the book. you’re left with a hopeless, pessimistic mood once you set the book down. the characters own views bleed into you, if only for a moment. very well done though, i absolutely recommend, it’s one of those books you read once and never again. it will haunt me for the rest of my life. the vocabulary is simple and easy to understand, yet emotions are written so poetically. there is an underlying depth in each sentence. you don’t need big words to be able to do that. you just need meaning. naturally when consuming darker media, you always try to grasp on things that can provide comfort. this book gives you none of that. there is nothing to hold onto, not even the characters. they are overall unlikeable, and in end end you feel like a hollow husk. the characters most likely feel the same too. make sure to take care of yourself while you read, treat yourself gently.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Death, Body horror, Gore, Homophobia, Violence, Bullying, and Gaslighting
bee_03's review
dark
tense
slow-paced
- 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
3.0
this was a recommendation i've long been waiting to get my hands on.
i found myself most enthralled by the first half of the book. halfway through the story started to drag and didn't capture my attention quite like the beginning. while the second half didn't feel completely divorced from the first half there was a noticeable shift that i don't think lived up to what came before.
unfortunately, the book didn't live up to my expectations. there were elements i liked but not the story overall. mostly i am left feeling ambivalent. that said, i liked habib's prose. there were more than a few lines i had to take a moment to reread because of how they were written.
i found myself most enthralled by the first half of the book. halfway through the story started to drag and didn't capture my attention quite like the beginning. while the second half didn't feel completely divorced from the first half there was a noticeable shift that i don't think lived up to what came before.
unfortunately, the book didn't live up to my expectations. there were elements i liked but not the story overall. mostly i am left feeling ambivalent. that said, i liked habib's prose. there were more than a few lines i had to take a moment to reread because of how they were written.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gaslighting, Gore, Homophobia, Bullying, and Death
Moderate: Toxic relationship and Child abuse
thesapphiccelticbookworm's review against another edition
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Homophobia, Bullying, Gaslighting, and Blood
Moderate: Alcohol, Pedophilia, and Abandonment
bimeariver's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- 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
a mindfuck of a book if i've ever seen one.
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??
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??
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Murder, Body horror, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Animal death and Violence
bookishlibrarian's review
dark
tense
medium-paced
1.5
I picked this up based on the blurb from Andrea Lawlor that says: "Finally, a horror story that knows cisheteropatriarchy is the villain!" I want to read that book! But I don't think this was it, or if it was, I really didn't like the execution of it.
Todd is a single father of Anthony. While they are on the beach one day, they encounter a man from Todd's past. Jack was an old school classmate who, as we see in flashbacks, bullied Todd. Which is just one reason why it seems questionable that Todd invites Jack into his and Anthony's lives, despite Jack showing some disturbing behavior. The author does a good job of building a feeling of dread and foreboding in the book's first part. And then, the precipitating event happens.
At this point, I probably should have given up as soon as it became clear that this was not a book for me. But I kept on, curious to see where the author was going with this new direction. It does depict the cyclical nature of abuse and violence and the dangers of repression and denial, but the author relies on relentlessly showing, rather than telling, in a way that made this very tough to read, with so much gore and gaslighting. I give a lot of leniency to genre fiction, particularly a genre that relies a lot on metaphor like horror, in terms of the amount of realism I expect from characters. But the author does not develop Todd enough before Jack's arrival to make me believe any of either Jack's or Todd's actions or reactions, particularly the extreme nature of them, from Todd's beginning offers to let Jack in to his and Anthony's lives to the descent into madness that happens after. I also found the two female characters to be paper thin, as was the inclusion of Sahir's character.
I still want to read that horror book, or a book that critiques toxic masculinity written by a man, so if you have suggestions, comment below!
Todd is a single father of Anthony. While they are on the beach one day, they encounter a man from Todd's past. Jack was an old school classmate who, as we see in flashbacks, bullied Todd. Which is just one reason why it seems questionable that Todd invites Jack into his and Anthony's lives, despite Jack showing some disturbing behavior. The author does a good job of building a feeling of dread and foreboding in the book's first part. And then, the precipitating event happens.
At this point, I probably should have given up as soon as it became clear that this was not a book for me. But I kept on, curious to see where the author was going with this new direction. It does depict the cyclical nature of abuse and violence and the dangers of repression and denial, but the author relies on relentlessly showing, rather than telling, in a way that made this very tough to read, with so much gore and gaslighting. I give a lot of leniency to genre fiction, particularly a genre that relies a lot on metaphor like horror, in terms of the amount of realism I expect from characters. But the author does not develop Todd enough before Jack's arrival to make me believe any of either Jack's or Todd's actions or reactions, particularly the extreme nature of them, from Todd's beginning offers to let Jack in to his and Anthony's lives to the descent into madness that happens after. I also found the two female characters to be paper thin, as was the inclusion of Sahir's character.
I still want to read that horror book, or a book that critiques toxic masculinity written by a man, so if you have suggestions, comment below!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gaslighting, Gore, and Bullying
readundancies's review
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
4.75
I have read exactly one other book that put me in such a tailspin of emotions that Hawk Mountain has left me in. And by tailspin of emotions, I mean specifically those of the uncomfortable kind. The kind that sit heavy at the back of your throat and bleed down your esophagus only to emulsify in your stomach due to the acidity. The kind that are distressing and concerning and make you physically ill because the contents just infect you. The kind that you don’t ever forget.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Medical content, and Violence
Moderate: Physical abuse, Stalking, Homophobia, Grief, Bullying, Murder, Gaslighting, Death, Child abuse, and Alcohol
alidtran's review
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gaslighting and Gore
taylortut's review
dark
medium-paced
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Murder, Violence, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Death, Blood, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship
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