Reviews

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

Only show reviews with written explanations

tara1992's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

3.5

prettykill's review against another edition

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3.0

Overall: A lot of promise, decent suspense, but expectations vs reality was disappointing
3/5 stars

This was a nice book to get me out of a recent reading slump after giving up on Addie Larue. Interesting premise, a decent amount of suspense, and an air of mystery about what was in the cave.

Spoilers below.

~Gyre and Her Faked Experience~

The main plot point on the back about Gyre lying about the experience and Em knowing really was irrelevant past 20%. Yeah, she knew, it didn't matter, she could sue, blah blah blah. Honestly they went over this so many times when I was switching back and forth between Kindle and physical book, I couldn't tell if I had read a passage already since it was so repetitive. I kinda just skimmed through those parts. It didn't do much to pull the story along, because once you get halfway, they kinda just trust and rely on each other anyways. And I get that is to build the character's relationship, but I just didn't find it relatable. Nothing about either character really made me interested in their romance. It just existed. That's about it. Nothing really tugged at the heartstrings, so if you toss the interest in the characters and their budding relationship out of the window, that only really left me with the plot points, so I will cover those next.

~The Fungus~

I though the fungus and mushrooms and the illuminating fungi were cool, but it really didn't go anywhere besides Gyre just getting infected and maybe hallucinating, and even then, they didn't blame it on the fungus, it could have just been stress. Nothing was ever covered later about the effects of the mushrooms either, so it felt like a plot device that wasn't fully fleshed out. I get all of it was supposed to make us question the narrator's sanity, but not getting answers made it seem pointless. Like why were there so many fungi tumors at camp five? What effect did the spores have on Gyre? Why were they growing in people so fast? If you gave me more of why, I would have felt satisfied, but I have no idea what the fungi was supposed to mean.

~Other cavers?~

The whole book I thought we were gonna find out Em's mom or another caver had survived somehow. I was really expecting something. And at the end where they found the shell suit I was like getting excited, but in the end it all turned out to be "hallucinations" or so we are lead to believe. There is Eli, who maybe Gyre killed when she cut the line, but again, we never find any answers. So where is Eli? Where is Isolde? We never find out. Gyre cut the line and believes she killed Eli, but she doesn't confront this once she is out. She just talks about going after her mom. Like you could have killed a guy but we are just gonna brush past that?

Not to mention, the whole time I was expecting Isolde to be alive, and we would find her fucked up on mushroom spores and crazy, but every time we see her, we are just told it is a hallucination, so again, this whole plot point was pointless. And even if it was hallucinations, it leads me to the earlier point with the Fungi never being explained. They never explained if the hallucinations WERE because of the fungi, or just stress.

~The Tunnelers~

This was basically the only thing to get excited about in the book that actually delivered, but even then it was a little disappointing. We hear about these ominous tunnelers the whole book, just to
see one in the end, and the only thing that kills it is the gravity? They can't support themselves outside their tunnels, but this makes no sense to me because the things evolved underground, surely they know what to do when they reach a cave. Also if they are drawn to sound, what do they want when they get there? It's cool we got to see one and all, but it just dies by a stroke of luck for Gyre and that's the end of that. Kinda disappointing.

~The Amputation~

Okay, I was going to give this 4/5 until I got to this scene. Amputations always freak me out. I don't give a fuck if it was warranted, I did not want to read about it. I don't want to think about it. I don't care that she could get a prosthetic. I just did not want to read or hear about an amputation, so that just knocks it down for me just because it is a personal trigger of mine I guess. Did not care for this at all, and I don't even see why the author had to write it in. It added nothing.

Final thoughts:

It was an decent read. It got me out of my reading slump, so I am giving it a solid 3. I am still confused as to who the Luminous Dead are. The luminous part makes it sound like the dead would become zombies. I guess they are luminously dead because the mushrooms grow on them. Also why did Gyre want to go back down in the cave? Was she just crazy? What did the Tunnelers want with the people once they got there? Why was it the sound? What happened to Em's mom? So many questions and no answers. I didn't feel satisfied finishing the book at all.