Reviews

The Sound of Broken Ribs by Edward Lorn

dantastic's review against another edition

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5.0

When Belinda Walsh's husband leaves her homeless and penniless, she goes out looking to ruin someone else and runs down writer Lei Duncan. Only Lei Duncan lives and isn't in the mood to be ruined.

The Lorn hit me up to read an ARC of this and I was game. After all, he's never let me down before. This books kicks the Lornography up several notches.

The Sound of Broken Ribs is a horror novel about loss, revenge and pain. If you had the chance to get revenge upon someone that wrecked you life, would you do it? How would you go about it?

Edward Lorn's writing has always reminded me of a young Stephen King's: lean, evocative, and powerful. Actually, this reminds me of Stephen King in another way. Lei Walsh is run over while running along the road.

Anyway, the writing is lean and mean and the twists cut right to the bone. Every time another twist hit me like a speeding car, I'd look at the number of pages left and wonder "What the hell else can happen to these characters?" Sure enough, worse things were always lurking around the curve.

Lei's road to recovery and revenge was painful. I even felt sorry for Belinda's hit and run ass. This book is one calamity after another and almost impossible to put down.

I can't praise this book enough. If I hadn't already anointed Edward Lorn the Future of Horror, I would with this book. Five out of five stars.

* You can buy The Sound of Broken Ribs here.

smrw's review against another edition

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4.0

Well. That was strange.

wendyblacke's review against another edition

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5.0

This was a wonderful read! I enjoyed how vividly the author describes things and the disturbing elements were right up my alley. The monster in this book is fascinating and just mysterious enough to hold my attention without feeling cheesy. The ending was cool and unexpected. This was my first read from Edward Lorn but definitely won't be my last. I'm a fan!

wellwortharead's review

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5.0

I have never read an Edward Lorn that I didn't enjoy. There are very few authors I can say that about.
The Sound Of Broken Ribs is as twisted as it's title. I'm not sure there's a lot I can say without giving away too much plot so I will stick with how it made me feel, because for me the best books are those that make you feel something.
For the briefest moment I felt sympathy for Belinda who had just had her ordinary hum drum life ripped out from under her, and then BAM I spent the rest of the book wanting to beat her to a pulp for making me feel sorry for her. Lets face it, lots of us have at some point been screwed over by a man we expected to live happily ever after with, but we didn't pull a Belinda.
The depth and scope of Lei's pain literally made my heart hurt. The suspense of not knowing for sure whether there were supernatural elements afoot or who would survive to the end kept me up turning pages until long past my bedtime. The ending was spectacular.

exorcismemily's review

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5.0

The Sound of Broken Ribs is the second book set in Bay's End. You do not have to read Bay's End to understand this book, but you should - it's a good book, and there are some repeat characters / casually mentioned storylines.

I really enjoyed Bay's End, but I liked The Sound of Broken Ribs even more - I personally prefer adult characters for the most part. This book was dark, addicting, gruesome at times, and deeper than I expected. I liked Lei and Jenna (who I also liked in Bay's End), and even though Belinda is the absolute worst, she even has some mildly likable moments. For a book that is under 300 pages, the characters are surprisingly layered.

The book has a paranormal / horror element, but it's not the main plot of the book. I could have used a little more of the paranormal part, and possibly more detail about it, but this did not take away any love I have for the book.

I highly recommend picking up both Bay's End and The Sound of Broken Ribs! I'm excited to see what else Edward writes! Bay's End is one messed up town, and I would always be interested in seeing what other darkness happens there.

sjgomzi's review

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4.0

4.5 *’s You do not want to be a character trapped in an Edward Lorn story. And don’t get too attached to anyone because Lorn will go-oh! You like this one-bang! Dead! Oh you think this one’s safe-bang! Dead! I loved the enormous unpredictability of it all. Every time I wrongfully thought I had a handle on where we were heading, the story would do a 360 and go off in new directions. Chock full of broken characters caught in crazy as shit situations digging themselves into deeper and deeper holes. Lorn mixes in some wicked ass humor in the midst of all the despair and I found myself laughing more than once at some pretty grim material. This was a hell of a page turner! I was already a fan after reading Fog Warning, and absolutely love Lorn’s style of throw everyone off the cliff-scorched earth brand of writing. Can’t wait to read more!

onewingedpsycho's review against another edition

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4.0

Oh god so many angry narcissistic unbearably awful characters, I hated this up to the third part which was fantastic and like a completely different book!

Edit:
I've upped my review to four stars because I can't stop thinking about that ending, I don't suppose I was meant to like the charcters which means the author did a damn good job. But that ending is haunting me.... It's terrifying and just the whole idea behind it is so freaking scary.
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