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jhasfurther's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
The ending is good but not very satisfying.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Mental illness, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Blood, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Ableism, Cancer, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, and Abandonment
ecurtin222's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.75
Dude, wtf
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Blood, Medical trauma, and Murder
Moderate: Abandonment
Minor: Ableism, Alcoholism, Cursing, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Forced institutionalization, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation
zenzi2read's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
The pacing and plot of this book were all over the place. There really wasn’t any reason to disguise. This is a documentary shot on the fly. Sydney is an accomplished professional working for a major network. It would’ve made more sense for the book to have started after she completed investigation and was shooting her documentary.also what presented here is not truly a documentary. It’s more of a series based on true events. I found the plot to be predictable and the book to be overly long for some thing that didn’t really develop any characters personality deeply.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
seagullsaga's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Slow to warm up and quite an abrupt ending. Maybe It’s just been a while since I’ve read this genre, but this book didn’t click with me until about two thirds of the way through. The whole thing is wrapped up by a quick series of twists that feels a little sudden but not out of place. When it lands though, it’s great.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Death, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Forced institutionalization
minimicropup's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Performative, effusive, quixotic.
We follow a documentary filmmaker taking on the case of a young couple, one of which was accused of murdering the other at a friend's wedding..
🇺🇸 🇱🇨Set in Manhattan, NY over the course of June and July 2017, with snippets of the documentary outlining the events at a Saint Lucian resort in 2007.
🐺🐕Growls, Howls, and Tail Wags:
🥱 This was a slog for me. It started off interesting and went downhill pretty fast. I liked the overall plot but struggled to get through how this was written. I spent most of the book wanting to get back to the original premise and mystery.
😑 Imagination smashing. We are introduced to so many characters, some that are almost a one-off, and we never get any descriptions of any of them. That's fine, it's just the type of story where we can imagine people as we wish, right? Wrong. One of the main characters (Sidney) is not described until past the 50% mark.
😣 Fragmented. Not in a good way. Didn't contribute to mystery, only frustration from the lack of focus. I felt like especially in the second half, we would get random jury information, chapters about political people and federal investigators where it read like a list of how they find out about the documentary findings, but in the process we lose the documentary angle almost entirely.
🤥 Suspend that disbelief. A medical examiner is filmed bashing in corpse heads as part of an experiment to see if their head wounds will match the original crime.... She just asked the medical dept if they had extra bodies while acknowledging there are ways to do this without beating up dead people who donated their bodies to science. Is this really a thing? Contrived interviews where most people either spill their guts or "accidentally" spill their guts then remember they're being recorded.
🥴 Do you want to read a weekly planner and meeting agendas? You'll love this! I swear there are entire chapters where most of it is just "___ will send the footage to ____, then ____ will edit and review, in time for ____ to get their post-production team on it for release by 9 am tomorrow, so we can follow up with ____ and ____ for their 10 am meeting." I'm BARELY exaggerating.
😖 Take the above and repeat. Essentially by the 50% mark all the documentary investigative reporting facts are rehashed to us along with meeting details and viewership numbers. It's repetitive and irrelevant to character development and plot. It felt like 14 people wrote this and none read what the others already covered.
🫠 Overexplainy, contrived dialogue. In a staff meeting at a cable station, one of them has a long winded explanation what Neilson ratings are and how streaming works, as if no one in the room knows. It wasn't even angled as, like, he can't read the room. There are several instances of this where dialogue is used to "educate" the reader instead of just telling us straight up if we really need to know.
🤨 You know what could be fun? Introducing an important character by listing their day-to-day struggles to get to the bathroom. Do that for a couple chapters. We have NO idea who this person is and why we have so much detail on their day-to-day life (which is basically the same every day). Then they suddenly become a main character at around the 60% mark.
😑 Imagination smashing. We are introduced to so many characters, some that are almost a one-off, and we never get any descriptions of any of them. That's fine, it's just the type of story where we can imagine people as we wish, right? Wrong. One of the main characters (Sidney) is not described until past the 50% mark.
😣 Fragmented. Not in a good way. Didn't contribute to mystery, only frustration from the lack of focus. I felt like especially in the second half, we would get random jury information, chapters about political people and federal investigators where it read like a list of how they find out about the documentary findings, but in the process we lose the documentary angle almost entirely.
🤥 Suspend that disbelief. A medical examiner is filmed bashing in corpse heads as part of an experiment to see if their head wounds will match the original crime.... She just asked the medical dept if they had extra bodies while acknowledging there are ways to do this without beating up dead people who donated their bodies to science. Is this really a thing? Contrived interviews where most people either spill their guts or "accidentally" spill their guts then remember they're being recorded.
🥴 Do you want to read a weekly planner and meeting agendas? You'll love this! I swear there are entire chapters where most of it is just "___ will send the footage to ____, then ____ will edit and review, in time for ____ to get their post-production team on it for release by 9 am tomorrow, so we can follow up with ____ and ____ for their 10 am meeting." I'm BARELY exaggerating.
😖 Take the above and repeat. Essentially by the 50% mark all the documentary investigative reporting facts are rehashed to us along with meeting details and viewership numbers. It's repetitive and irrelevant to character development and plot. It felt like 14 people wrote this and none read what the others already covered.
🫠 Overexplainy, contrived dialogue. In a staff meeting at a cable station, one of them has a long winded explanation what Neilson ratings are and how streaming works, as if no one in the room knows. It wasn't even angled as, like, he can't read the room. There are several instances of this where dialogue is used to "educate" the reader instead of just telling us straight up if we really need to know.
🤨 You know what could be fun? Introducing an important character by listing their day-to-day struggles to get to the bathroom. Do that for a couple chapters. We have NO idea who this person is and why we have so much detail on their day-to-day life (which is basically the same every day). Then they suddenly become a main character at around the 60% mark.
Mood Reading Match Up:
- Touches of investigative journalism excerpts
- Detailed documentary production behind-the-scenes fiction
- True crime whodunnit energy
- Vacay isolated resort suspense
Content Heads-Up: Murder. Possible false accusation. Ableism. Car accident (life-altering injury). Drunk driving. Traumatic brain injury and immobility.
Format: Library Digital via Libby
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Forced institutionalization, Car accident, and Murder
Minor: Alcohol
3readingcircus's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Blood, Medical content, and Car accident
Moderate: Ableism and Gun violence
Minor: Alcoholism, Slavery, Suicide, Vomit, and Antisemitism
ceilisbookshelf's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
2.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism and Lesbophobia
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