bekah1210's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
beccasreads's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
siriuslyloveyou's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
znnys's review against another edition
1.0
This was a really disappointing book. I heard a lot of hype around it and felt confident enough to buy a copy, but wow. The writing is unnecessarily dense - there's a lot of over-description, over-complicating very simple actions. Phillip jokingly hoisting Faiz over his shoulder became a paragraph I had to reread three times just to understand what happened.
It still doesn't even make sense to me why these characters were friends with each other when they all hated each other, and why they decided to have their wedding in this place? The way Talia and Cat are written strikes me as so juvenile. Bitchy popular girl vs the cool protagonist. I kept waiting for a payoff over all of these contrived stereotypes and there wasn't one. Every moment of tension is bisected by a quippy Marvel-esque comment from Lin. It's not actually a scary book - there were two specific moments that, by themselves, I found genuinely creepy, but ruined within the context of the story.
By the end of the book I was just left wondering what the point even was.
It still doesn't even make sense to me why these characters were friends with each other when they all hated each other, and why they decided to have their wedding in this place? The way Talia and Cat are written strikes me as so juvenile. Bitchy popular girl vs the cool protagonist. I kept waiting for a payoff over all of these contrived stereotypes and there wasn't one. Every moment of tension is bisected by a quippy Marvel-esque comment from Lin. It's not actually a scary book - there were two specific moments that, by themselves, I found genuinely creepy, but ruined within the context of the story.
By the end of the book I was just left wondering what the point even was.
cleradin's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
2.5
gsroney's review against another edition
2.0
I should stop getting book recommendations from random TikToks.
kappareads's review against another edition
3.0
I honestly didn't mind the writing style, but that might just be because 1) audiobook and 2) I know how Khaw writes so I was pleasantly surprised that I could understand the writing and what was going on as compared to The All-Consuming World. Sometimes the writing is A Lot, but honestly I thought the purple prose worked with the horror genre sometimes. If nothing else, it meant the vibes were 10/10, even if the other aspects weren't.
This book just fell flat for characters and ending. The characters weren't like super unique, but they also weren't like "you love to see them die in a horror film" kind of characters. Also the ending just fell flat for me.
This book just fell flat for characters and ending. The characters weren't like super unique, but they also weren't like "you love to see them die in a horror film" kind of characters. Also the ending just fell flat for me.
fe_reads's review against another edition
3.0
This is among the top three for weirdest books I've read this year. However, even though I didn't understand half of what was going on, the writing style was really interesting.