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white_flame69's review
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
lovechamber's review
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.0
Probably the most emotionally sensitive and gentle of the GM cycle (so far, at least), despite still having around the same level of sexual violence as the former. It’s the only one that’s made me actually tear up, but I read this on my period so take that with a grain of salt.
jordanfister's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
noahfence2007's review
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Pedophilia, and Sexual violence
futurama1979's review
5.0
try has been the hardest and most heartbreaking book of the cycle that i’ve read. somehow impossibly it is also the most hopeful. while frisk really got into the psychosexual side of cooper’s themes, this book dealt with the emotional. the character of ziggy spoke to me the strongest of any of the georges he’s shown us, and this, probably not coincidentally, is the closest he has let us in to any of his georges’ heads. and jesus, he doesn’t spare detail. ziggy is exaggerated but so carefully and intentionally written. the character of calhoun also stood out beyond the average cooper side character insofar. everything in it is really painful. there was almost a stark lack of structure in this compared to the past two books in the cycle; it took a bit for me to adjust but worked better and better for me the further along i got. this was also the first book in the cycle with slight breaks of the fourth wall, which i thought was just a cool touch and done so effortlessly. and then the hope element; unlike the others, there is in try a thread beneath the horror that’s not thematic but a secondary plot. the quasiplatonic love story of a listless, mostly empty teen heroin addict and the deeply traumatised bipolar artist who thinks he hung the sun.
i nearly never do this in reviews, but this passage stood out to me more than any singular bit of prose has, not just in the cycle so far but in a long time. this is some of calhoun’s conjecture as he’s starting to nod:
ziggy just winds up praying in private like calhoun is god, feeling helpless and too idealistic. because… what could he say? calhoun, your incapacitation is frightening me, or… if you o.d., i’ll be completely destroyed, meanwhile crossing his fingers in hopes his well-being still counts for anything with the guy. it does and it doesn’t. certainly calhoun can’t tell him so. luckily, ziggy’s half-learned how to sidestep his friend’s generalized behavior, decode contracted eyes, sift through that fuzz, overvalue the warmth of their rare outbound flickers. they’ve become the most beautiful things in the world, like the muffled cries of hikers trapped in landslides in the middle of nowhere. he’s learned to let them spark his imagination. still, pray and daydream as ziggy might, he can’t quite reconfigure what’s here. here: a skinny blonde teenager pickled in heroin, slack-faced, fallen limp as a corpse, brain discarding his lovers and friends for a half-life in decorous seclusion, unconcerned how it looks, or who he’s upset along the way, figuring nobody else will ever wander this far, check.
i nearly never do this in reviews, but this passage stood out to me more than any singular bit of prose has, not just in the cycle so far but in a long time. this is some of calhoun’s conjecture as he’s starting to nod:
ziggy just winds up praying in private like calhoun is god, feeling helpless and too idealistic. because… what could he say? calhoun, your incapacitation is frightening me, or… if you o.d., i’ll be completely destroyed, meanwhile crossing his fingers in hopes his well-being still counts for anything with the guy. it does and it doesn’t. certainly calhoun can’t tell him so. luckily, ziggy’s half-learned how to sidestep his friend’s generalized behavior, decode contracted eyes, sift through that fuzz, overvalue the warmth of their rare outbound flickers. they’ve become the most beautiful things in the world, like the muffled cries of hikers trapped in landslides in the middle of nowhere. he’s learned to let them spark his imagination. still, pray and daydream as ziggy might, he can’t quite reconfigure what’s here. here: a skinny blonde teenager pickled in heroin, slack-faced, fallen limp as a corpse, brain discarding his lovers and friends for a half-life in decorous seclusion, unconcerned how it looks, or who he’s upset along the way, figuring nobody else will ever wander this far, check.
tendermarimo's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
ladyhawke's review
2.0
The writing style and dialogue was incredibly annoying and just not written well which is too bad because I could see this story having real substance if it wasn’t written so terribly! Ultimately I DNF.
aiden_e_messer's review
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Honestly I don't know how to rate this. It's exhausting to read, it's all foggy and blurry and everything is creepy as hell. But I love the way it's written, and how pretty much every character is unhinged, fucked up, and/or completely out of touch with reality. Somehow, it makes them more human, more touching. (Well, some of them at least)
On an unrelated note, I really liked the parallels between Slayer lyrics and what was happening in the book during some passages.
All in all, this was completely depressing
ezrasupremacy's review
5.0
4.5 ⭐️ rounded up
book 8/18 for my october horror reading challenge (still pretending!)
i loved this book. gross/fun/nauseating in the usual way, but even more deeply emotional. i very much hate to say this, but i related a lot to both ziggy and calhoun, and i felt incredibly attached to the two of them and both their individual stories and their joined one. being honest, i was a little teary eyed towards the end, which is a little crazy to me, but i really wished the two of them would get a happy ending together — not that i would ever expect to get that in a cooper novel.
anyway, this was my favourite of the george miles cycle so far, but i still have two more left to go, so we shall see if that impression still changes.
book 8/18 for my october horror reading challenge (still pretending!)
i loved this book. gross/fun/nauseating in the usual way, but even more deeply emotional. i very much hate to say this, but i related a lot to both ziggy and calhoun, and i felt incredibly attached to the two of them and both their individual stories and their joined one. being honest, i was a little teary eyed towards the end, which is a little crazy to me, but i really wished the two of them would get a happy ending together — not that i would ever expect to get that in a cooper novel.
anyway, this was my favourite of the george miles cycle so far, but i still have two more left to go, so we shall see if that impression still changes.