Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Mister Lullaby by J.H. Markert

2 reviews

megandherbook's review

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I loved The Nightmare Man and this was a great second book from J.H. Market.

In a small town there is an infamous tunnel that always seems to have disaster and tragedy associated with it. It was collapsed in after a young boy, Sully Dupree, was injured and remains in a coma. We get introduced to some key members of the town that all have connections to Sully as well as some people that have never been to the town or even have met the boy but still have strong connections to him. As bizarre murders start happening and bodies are showing up at the tunnel and a brief moment where Sully wakes up with a warning members of the small town of Herrod’s Reach start to learn that there are two worlds and the sleeping world is starting to come into the real world.

This book is very entertaining but does take some concentration to follow along. There are a lot of different story lines that are all intertwined but it takes some time before you see how. As someone with night terrors I’ve always found folklore around dreams intriguing and especially loved the use of it in this book. If you read The Nightmare Man you would have already gotten a taste of this world from J.H. Markert. This book is a standalone though and you don’t have to have read The Nightmare Man to read this one but there are bits of the story that overlap and there is even a part where the setting and plot of The Nightmare Man is specifically talked about.

I did a tandem read while also listening to the audiobook and I highly recommend listening to the audiobook. There are multiple narrators that jump back and forth between time and places so hearing the different narrators made it easier to keep track of what was going on. The narrators were wonderful and brought each of the many characters to life.

The way the book ended has me very hopeful that there is going to be a sequel where we’ll get more answers. If there isn’t then it’s a disappointing ending but an entertaining read.
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heather_harrison's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

4.0

 Thank you NetGalley & Crooked Lane Books for my e-ARC of Mister Lullaby.

I thoroughly enjoyed this for the most part, and thought it was creepy and foreboding. I would recommend for anybody who enjoyed NOS4A2 - as the writing was reminiscent of Joe Hill & Stephen King.

I would suggest some proofreading as I did have a couple of weird things happening with my formatting and layout.. On a similar note, while the chapters all vary in length - Chapter 39 was so long.

I did make note part way through reading that Beth & Jax's relationship seemed a bit bizarre - and I was so glad to seem there was intention behind that. The pacing of the last third of the story was chaotic. The ending was definitely a let down, and left me frustrated and underwhelmed. We the readers are left to try and make sense of what has happened to our beloved Simon & Beth and the town of Harrod’s Reach.
 
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