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emory's review
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
I'm not sure how to describe this book. It doesnt follow your typical story beats for a mystery (or really have story beats at all...most important plot points are anticlimactic simple decisions). None of the characters or town landmarks are really introduced all that well, our main character included. The descriptions, while beautifully written, dip farther and farther into purple as you go on, to the point where you forget what the characters are doing by the time you get to the end of the three paragaph description of how the street mirrors the emotion of our main character.
Here's one of the more egregious examples if you, like I do, doubt when someone in a review calls descriptive writing excessive:
"The day felt like it lasted the entire span of the Dark Age—dim and rocky, crags and lava, monsters emerging from volcanoes and mountain lakes, from thorny deserts and mildewed forests. Monsters lived in every land yet to be explored. And nothing had been explored, ever, not back then, not before fire and the imitation shadows it made. There were thick animal skins, fearsome night sounds in the light of day, the curved bones of rib cages baking in the dry sun. Tall, chalk-skinned trees, their leaves and branches too high to climb, too out of reach to see anything." After this begins a truly hard to follow and extremely long dream sequence where the main character is pursued by the actual devil.
I did enjoy the mood this book built, and I felt like particular scenes and tangents were very evocative, especially the ending. However, I didn't feel like the plot or the characters were strong enough to carry me through these divergences into long, aesthetic/mood-building sequences of endless adjectives and useless descriptive metaphors. Every time a character made a decision, it was always something out of left field that the narrative seemed to prescribe as second nature. The main "villain" has an extremely poor motive in my opinion. Barely anything that moves the main story forward happens at all until almost 3/4 of the way in!
Not necessarily an unenjoyable read, but a veeeeeery slow and immersion based one.
Here's one of the more egregious examples if you, like I do, doubt when someone in a review calls descriptive writing excessive:
"The day felt like it lasted the entire span of the Dark Age—dim and rocky, crags and lava, monsters emerging from volcanoes and mountain lakes, from thorny deserts and mildewed forests. Monsters lived in every land yet to be explored. And nothing had been explored, ever, not back then, not before fire and the imitation shadows it made. There were thick animal skins, fearsome night sounds in the light of day, the curved bones of rib cages baking in the dry sun. Tall, chalk-skinned trees, their leaves and branches too high to climb, too out of reach to see anything." After this begins a truly hard to follow and extremely long dream sequence where the main character is pursued by the actual devil.
I did enjoy the mood this book built, and I felt like particular scenes and tangents were very evocative, especially the ending. However, I didn't feel like the plot or the characters were strong enough to carry me through these divergences into long, aesthetic/mood-building sequences of endless adjectives and useless descriptive metaphors. Every time a character made a decision, it was always something out of left field that the narrative seemed to prescribe as second nature. The main "villain" has an extremely poor motive in my opinion. Barely anything that moves the main story forward happens at all until almost 3/4 of the way in!
Not necessarily an unenjoyable read, but a veeeeeery slow and immersion based one.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Suicide, Stalking, Death of parent, and Murder
Moderate: Confinement, Rape, and Abandonment
Main character spends the first half of the book being stalked by a teenage boy known for raping and assaulting other girls in the town. Two upsetting sequences in which children are separated from their mothers briefly and then find their mothers murdered. Very bleak atmosphere overall for this bookms_smith's review
dark
slow-paced
2.25
Thank you for Witch Way Publishing for the free copy of the book!
Great story potential, poor execution. It was a hot mess, like the author wanted to squeeze in every horror trope all at once. For me, this was not authentic enough. I just couldn't believe that a little girl would 'solve' the murder cases just like that. It also got me confused that until the second half of the book I couldn't place the happenings into any era or figure out how old was Pearl. It all confused me. There were so many unnecessary details, like the part where a church service was described or when there was a switched view from Pearl's to another child. There were many misspellings which disintegrated the story as well. I didn't like the ending, because it gave nothing. I got no answers to the questions imposed throughout the story. Like who was the painter guy? Why was he painting on Rose's diner's wall? Why did Pearl see dead mothers? What was the purpose of the murders of the mothers? And so on...
The whole story was pointless, forced. A huge disappointment, because the base of the story carried so much potential which remained unexploited.
Great story potential, poor execution. It was a hot mess, like the author wanted to squeeze in every horror trope all at once. For me, this was not authentic enough. I just couldn't believe that a little girl would 'solve' the murder cases just like that. It also got me confused that until the second half of the book I couldn't place the happenings into any era or figure out how old was Pearl. It all confused me. There were so many unnecessary details, like the part where a church service was described or when there was a switched view from Pearl's to another child. There were many misspellings which disintegrated the story as well. I didn't like the ending, because it gave nothing. I got no answers to the questions imposed throughout the story. Like who was the painter guy? Why was he painting on Rose's diner's wall? Why did Pearl see dead mothers? What was the purpose of the murders of the mothers? And so on...
The whole story was pointless, forced. A huge disappointment, because the base of the story carried so much potential which remained unexploited.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Rape, and Death of parent
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