Reviews

Below by Laurel Hightower

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ireniam's review against another edition

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DNF@49%

Meh...

Reading slump navideño, ro po pom poooom

darkskybooks's review against another edition

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5.0

This was an extremely claustrophobic read. The sense of isolation, and entrapment was executed extremely well, the reveals that nothing is quite as it seems built up beautifully for such a short read. I was attracted to the Mothman premise (I have not read enough Mothman stuff) but was not prepared for the psychological horror that was presented here.

Disturbing in all the best ways

bookishwelshie's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Laurel Hightower’s writing style is very unique - I can imagine one would either like it, or not gel with it. She does well at building a sense of terror and dread within just over 100 pages. However, the gory, creature-feature, elements are left up to the reader’s imagination/interpretation in parts. Is the main character, Addy, having some sort of psychotic break? She hears her ex-husband talking to her in her head, and also hallucinates seeing him at one point. Or is whatever is out there messing with her mind? There’s a horrifying night in store, beyond anyone’s worst nightmares, for her and a trucker she meets along her drive, Mads.

loumas's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

grizelybear's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

It's... fine? The story started strong and built a great tense environment, but it just became a weird mess around the last three to four chapters (and I like weird, but this was not a good kind of weird). I thought the take on mothman's abilities was interesting, but I just can't help but think that its speech near the end was kind of goofy and really killed the vibes. I'm sure the author could have figured out a way to make the overall message of the story clear without spelling it out for us like a cartoonish, monologuing murder mystery final boss. A lot of the seemingly important events didn't really go anywhere either, which is a bummer.

I like the overarching theme and I liked Addy as a protagonist and related to her, but the story just unfortunately didn't click for me.