Reviews

Rotters by Daniel Kraus

whatever1441's review against another edition

5.0

I love this book. I don't know what it was about it but it was a beautiful read. There has to be something about revenge, lost, and family that pulled me in. It has some of the best horrific descriptions I have ever read. 10 out of 10 will read again

faithconner's review against another edition

dark 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

1.5

cinderelly23's review against another edition

Bad timing! It was a Libby rental and I got busy- I was enjoying it but it did feel a little slow. 

sacajaguido's review against another edition

5.0

From reading the back of this book I had an idea that it wasn't going to be a light read, but I completely underestimated just how dark this book was going to be. This is the story of a young boy, Joey Crouch, who losses his mother and has to live with a father he's never met nor heard of in his life. This isn't the only tragedy in the road for Joey either, his transition at school is anything but flawless, there's a vindictive teacher who has made it his mission to make Joey suffer every class, he quickly becomes the victim of numerous bully's, and to top everything off he discovers that his father’s job isn't the garbage man despite the fact that this is what everyone calls him. Joey discovers that his father is a grave robber and this is just the beginning of a steady slide into a dark and terrifying world where the dead aren't the most terrifying thing that Joey will encounter. I've never read a book where my mouth has literally dropped more than once, but this book accomplished this with grotesque ease. At points I was literally sick to my stomach, but I found it impossible to stop reading. That being said I would only recommend this book to children from grade 11 up because of just how dark and mature some of the situations in this book are. Also, the language in this book is both advanced (some of the vocab used I didn't know) and at the same time crude and vulgar. There is cursing and crudeness mixed right along with the highbrow language, which mimics the dual lives of the grave robbers when they try to live normal lives; they have the crude, dark, and vulgar right alongside the proper. Nevertheless, while this is a great technique on the author’s part the language limits the reader of this novel. Another point I’d like to make is that one should be careful when giving this book to any young readers who have had a death or trauma in their lives because the graphic descriptions in this novel could be a trigger for them. This isn't to say that this book isn't a good choice for young readers, any reader who enjoys horror will definitely tear through this book, but it's good to give them a fair warning ahead of time.

naomistrange's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

5.0

carstensena's review against another edition

4.0

Listened to the audiobook of this one. Terrific presentation, and an amazing book. The writing is so so good. YA literary horror. There's not much of that around!

mmorton's review against another edition

5.0

I really enjoyed this book. It is as creepy as it is exciting; a well written and dark coming of age story.

bestofjess's review against another edition

4.0

This book was very interesting.

I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

It was utterly disgusting but brilliantly written.

I think I liked it but then I wonder how gross I must be to like such a disgusting book.

There's not much more I can say.

jessseadoesstuff's review against another edition

4.0

This was an up and down ride but was so satisfying at the end I have to give it 4 stars. A little long and had some weird pacing. But this book really went one some character journeys.

Kirby Keyborne read the audiobook and was phenomenal. Next level voice acting and really added to drama and darkness. I fully plan on finding more books read by him.

litwrite's review against another edition

3.0

This was really disappointing for me. I gave it 3 stars because I recognize that it was well-written but reading this book was a total slog for me.

First of all, I'm not really sure if I would classify this as horror. I suppose that grave-robbing is a pretty horrific subject, but in this novel I really found the most horrific thing was the constant, unrelenting horrible things that kept happening to the protagonist. It was like a de Sade novel written for young adults, I just kept wondering how much more shit the author could pile onto the proganist to make his life any worse. A lot of it just seemed so out of left field for me too.

Spoiler

I'm not sure that I bought that just because he moved to another town that his best friend from his old life, who he pretty much said was also a loner and they only hung out together with each other, would suddenly forget all about him and drop him and never talk to him again.

. In today's digital age where everyone is pretty much instantaneously reachable it seems really far fetched.

I also didn't get the way the opening scene was set up. He kept mentioning how he knew his mother's death was coming so he didn't want to wake up and he was waiting for it? I kept waiting for that to be explained in the book and it never was.

Too much work and not enough pay off for me.