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vacantbones's review against another edition
5.0
It's great to live free of the other sheep until you hear the wolves howl.
edit: 2 years later and I think about this book all the time. Weekly, at least. Who am I kidding? I'm throwing another star on this one.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not big on creature features, but I can't deny that I had a lot of fun with Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre!
Our narrator, Kate, has just moved to a progressive and isolated eco-conscious community with her directionless husband and is documenting the experience in her journal. Little does she know that a volcanic eruption is about to send a herd of hungry, oft-mythologized creatures their way.
I liked the way that Devolution was formatted as a book within a book, combining Kate's discovered journal with interviews and tidbits of Sasquatch lore. I even enjoyed the characters, despite their being realistically insufferable, and the pacing was to my taste.
This was almost a perfect read for me, and one of the reasons it wasn't is *entirely* my fault. We are told from the very beginning that Kate has never been found. This is not a secret! Even so, I had hoped for just a bit more resolution with the ending. I still found the conclusion to be satisfying, but the gap between when Kate stopped writing in her journal and her disappearance from the community seemed to be full of stuff I would've loved to read about (spoiler:
Spoiler
Sasquatch jerky, are you kidding!!!!Probably going to have Bigfoot nightmares tonight. Or every night. I don't know. Still, super fun read.
stsylvester666's review against another edition
4.0
A quick and easy entertaining read, Devolution wasn’t a literary masterpiece, but it was a good time! Just the right amount of suspense and gore to feel like a real horror novel.
kirstend's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
mcbibliotecaria's review against another edition
1.0
Why did I give max Brooks another chance? I couldn't follow this at all.
katiescho741's review against another edition
2.0
So disappointed. Honestly, this is barely a horror book.
There's some good stuff in the first chapters - I liked the framing device of the eruption of Mt Rainier and how the government budget cuts lead to it being even worse than it should have been. I think it was clever to put the Bigfoot story within a larger story to explain the isolation of Greenloop. I liked the idea of Greenloop too and how the book discussed how a lot of people want to have the superiority of living "off grid" while also being completely connected via drone delivery and webcams. There's also some interesting stuff about animal attacks and our relationship with nature.
However, the actual story is pretty dull and by the time things kicked off I really didn't care. The main character, whose diary we're reading, is so meek and boring and the rest of the Greenloop residents are cardboard cutouts - the beautiful successful couple whose marriage might now be so rosy, the vegans, the lesbians with the adopted daughter with PTSD, the husband who had some issues that are never described or explained, and the old woman from a misc foreign country with obviously a really interesting story that never gets told.
Majorly letdown by this one, and I never want to read about people planting seeds and making spears from bamboo ever again.
There's some good stuff in the first chapters - I liked the framing device of the eruption of Mt Rainier and how the government budget cuts lead to it being even worse than it should have been. I think it was clever to put the Bigfoot story within a larger story to explain the isolation of Greenloop. I liked the idea of Greenloop too and how the book discussed how a lot of people want to have the superiority of living "off grid" while also being completely connected via drone delivery and webcams. There's also some interesting stuff about animal attacks and our relationship with nature.
However, the actual story is pretty dull and by the time things kicked off I really didn't care. The main character, whose diary we're reading, is so meek and boring and the rest of the Greenloop residents are cardboard cutouts - the beautiful successful couple whose marriage might now be so rosy, the vegans, the lesbians with the adopted daughter with PTSD, the husband who had some issues that are never described or explained, and the old woman from a misc foreign country with obviously a really interesting story that never gets told.
Majorly letdown by this one, and I never want to read about people planting seeds and making spears from bamboo ever again.
charlie_is_amazing_11's review against another edition
1.0
This was so disappointing... First of all: It took my DAYS to even reach page 46. 2: The way this author writes female characters SUCKS!!!! There was a line that was like: "His wink tickled my vertebrae." HOW CAN YOUR VERTEBRAE BE TICKLED????!!!! 3: I love cryptids, bigfoot especially and this book seemed so cool but I couldn't even finish it because it was so bad.
mdfelicetti's review against another edition
challenging
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
monbro's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5