Reviews

Graveyard of Lost Children by Katrina Monroe

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cwelch021's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

sleepytimebooks's review

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.25

samlo_books's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Dude... what?

Usually, a book that would earn 2 or fewer stars from me is a book I DNF before the end, because I don't believe in forcing myself to finish things that aren't fun. In this case, I was holding out for a really good conclusion that would make everything else worth it in the end, but I only ended up further dissatisfied instead. Perhaps if it had been about 200 pages shorter and 25% more interesting, I would've had a better shot at enjoying it, and perhaps it hits differently if you're a parent, but the supernatural buildup in this story was completely and totally lost on me by the end.

No characters are particularly likable and the ending falls flat.
Petition to throw Olivia back into the well.

mar11901's review

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

zorawitchin's review

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1.5

Oh GOD. I know it’s like a metaphor but have you considered that this book is also not so good

hadesdaughter's review

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4.0

First of all, I'd like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Trigger warnings for: postpartum depression, psychiatric hospitalization, paranoia, mental health issues, anxiety, death, self-harm, suicide attempt, graphic description of childbirth, attempted murder, manipulation.

Well, Graveyard of Lost Children is a very heavy and creepy book, but very good. It's the kind of book you start reading and can't stop. It is divided into two POVs: Olivia in present times and Shannon, her mother, when she was young.

There are some things that I didn't like, for example, some parts are kinda slow-pacing, repetitive and dull and ends up making the book too long.

But overall it's a very good book, a biting-my-nails book, disconcerting and scary. I found the ending quite interesting and innovative because it's not one of those "everything worked out perfectly and everyone lived happily ever after" endings, it's realistic and relatable.

wordswritinstarlight's review against another edition

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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.

Content Warnings