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itsheyfay's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gore, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, Suicide, Transphobia, Lesbophobia, and Abandonment
Minor: Racism and Kidnapping
wrestleacademic's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Body horror and Blood
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Torture
Animal death happens off page/mentionedconnorjdaley's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
For all intents and purposes, this is an adult Scooby-Doo reimagining. There’s some great Easter eggs, references, and alterations. But I particularly liked that the author changed the characterizations of the meddling kids. Although I did find some of it, like the romance aspect, to feel incredibly forced and weird. Still enjoyed the overall changes though.
13 years after the final case for the Blyton Summer Detective Club, Andy decides it’s time to figure out what went wrong and get the band back together. They are all messed up, and at first I just thought it was going to be a dark story about their combined ptsd, but the story really deviated in at least a somewhat satisfying way. What if they weren’t just meddling kids? What if not every crime had a guy in a mask at the end of it? That’s what this story seeks to show.
My only real gripe for this one is that the climax builds and builds and builds, and then I personally felt like it fell flat. It actually comes to a close so suddenly that I thought I missed it and re-listened to a full half an hour…I hadn’t missed it, it’s just in actuality, not really there anyway. Regardless though I did really enjoy the rest of the stuff that goes us there.
Personally a 3.5/5* for me, I wish there had been Scooby snacks…
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
marykendrick666_'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
Graphic: Gore, Mental illness, Transphobia, and Violence
Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Cursing, Homophobia, Suicide, Blood, and Toxic friendship
mikc's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
Moderate: Body horror and Blood
epeolatri's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Homophobia, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexism, Car accident, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Sexual content and Torture
emily_journals's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Except this book was so disappointing in execution. From reading other reviews, I'm so glad I read the audiobook version of this, because the stage direction inserts and made up words weren't as noticeable, so I'll give the narrator mad props for making those things really unnoticeable. I thought the book started off on the right track, but around the halfway point in this book is when I really started noticing all the negatives.
First off, for being set in the 90s (and flashback-esque scenes from the 70s), I personally did not feel much nostalgia around any certain time period. This book could have mostly been reset from the 90s and plopped into modern day (or really, any other time period) with very little change; this is 100% fine, except one of the selling points promised by this book is to be nostalgic for the 90s specifically (which I personally did not find it to be).
Secondly, the ending of this book. Everything that happened in the last ~20% of the book was chaotic, unbelievable, and hard to follow.
Seriously, so much of the end of this book was just fight scene after fight scene, with little substantial buffer between, which I personally find really boring to read (or listen to) for a significant amount of time, especially when every fight scene is "gang fights creatures, then run, then fight new hoard of same creatures, then run.... repeat".
Lastly, this book has some dangerous discussion of mental health and some questionable representation of queer people. The mental health discussion in this book is unnuanced and the whole introduction scene to the asylum has some problematic descriptions of people with and without mental health issues. The main villain ended up using transness as a device to live forever and be evil, which was super unnecessary. The lesbian character in this book is also very much a caricature of a "typical lesbian" media portrayal.
Overall, I wish I had done more research into this book before picking it up instead of taking the promises given by the author/publisher at face value.
Graphic: Ableism, Death, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Confinement, Panic attacks/disorders, Transphobia, and Lesbophobia
courtneyfalling's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Then... Nate. Look. This book doesn't sugarcoat that psychiatric institutions are just incarceration, but rather than just letting that critique exist as part of the book, the author keeps going out of his way to have the characters make saneist and ableist jokes about Nate and the folks he knew in psychiatric institutions. It's like the critique becomes that these places are prisons because of the foul and disruptive strangeness of the people inside... rather than actually thinking about trauma and social factors like the narrative easily could've done!
Now for that frickin' ending.
Graphic: Ableism, Mental illness, and Transphobia
Moderate: Gore, Suicide, and Blood
laurajones's review against another edition
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Transphobia, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Confinement, Fatphobia, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Car accident, and Colonisation
kaylatee's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
Moderate: Addiction, Cursing, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Suicide, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Alcohol
Minor: Deadnaming
Huge spoiler without context: