Reviews

Graveyard of Lost Children by Katrina Monroe

wordswritinstarlight's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

Look this book is fine. The writing is beautiful, it's an extremely thoughtful and emotive exploration of mental illness and parenthood and generational  trauma. The suspense works, Olivia is a solid main character and Shannon is sympathetic even at her worst, this book achieves exactly what it meant to. I think it drags a little in the middle--chunks of Olivia's story definitely feel like they're being extended in order to continue spacing out Shannon's story "correctly"--but not so much that I had trouble keeping up the momentum of the book. It's fine. I would recommend this book to people who like horror novels like this. 

Look. I just don't like horror novels that are thoughtful explorations of mental illness through

straight up mental illness, possibly because I go to enough therapy in my day to day life that those bore me and possibly because I have enough psychology training/emergency medical training that I find them predictable. This book is textbook postpartum depression/postpartum psychosis, actually this book is a great guide to things to look out for in your loved ones, but I was kind of hoping for an exploration of those things through a supernatural lens and I was steadily more frustrated as things shook out firmly mundane. I grasp that the suspense is about whether or not the supernatural aspects are real or a delusion, and this book does a great job with it, but I just truly find realistic fiction so boring.</spoilers> I probably should have cut my losses as soon as it was clear this book was not going to include any Ring shit. This is a failure of my own internal filtering in my library catalog and not the book itself, but here we are.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, and Suicide attempt

burntout_bookworm's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

gmonnie's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

marisnini's review

dark emotional medium-paced

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

2.0

Olivia has to be one of the most frustrating protagonists I suffered through.

Shannon is way more of a sympathetic character in my opinion.
She was a kid and didn't have much choice in becoming a mother, she lacked access to abortion.
But Olivia actively decided to become a mom and sucked a**

As a child of shitty parents this story is hard to get through, as a mom going through shit with your newborn you might identify with Olivia more.
Personally, couldn't stand her one bit.

lyrics_library's review

4.0

Katrina Monroe did an amazing job capturing the readers attentions from the very beginning. While I felt it was slow to get into at first I was still hooked. The way Katrina wrote both Olivia and Shannons point of views was spot on and really brought the reader into both of the characters minds. The twists in the book were almost subtle yet jaw dropping.
As a new mother myself I resonate heavily with this book. Katrina captured the feelings of motherhood/postpartum perfectly while dragging those feeling just a bit further and turning it into a nightmare. A nightmare I feel many mothers are familiar with.
I would recommend this book over and over!

issisannettereads's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-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

4.0

Not usually a horror reader but damn did this scare me.

alicia_toothman's review

5.0

As a mom, I could relate to Olivia in ways I didn’t even remember. It brought back memories from my kid’s infancy and the feelings I had. The worry, the exhaustion, not feeling understood. Above all the undying, unfathomable love for your child.

I truly appreciated that the dual perspectives were easy to follow. There were clear differences in the povs which made it much more enjoyable for me. I didn’t feel the need to backtrack to figure out whose timeline I was reading.

The synopsis captures the book well, as eerie as that is. It lives up to it. You won’t believe that ending!

I highly recommend this one!

amanda_m_harwood's review

Not what I thought it would be like.

sundance78's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

2.75

elysiamann's review

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

Very heavy story on a very important topic, but it was at times tough to get through with so much darkness. The writing is only ok- a lot of repetition in word choice and tropes.