Reviews with content warning for Murder - Ohio

I struggled with the first 50 or so pages of this book where it seemed to just be cliches about small town Ohio.

I am very happy I stuck with it. Ohio hit home for me and elicited audible reactions after I had been sucked in.

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kaci_g's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

5.0

This is a book that made you feel so uncomfortable that you loved it. The characters in this book were so unique and the situations that arose were all realistic, borderline crazy, that made you want to know what happens next. This is a long book but it was worth all of its pages.

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danaaliyalevinson's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

What a book. Through the lens of a group of disaffected 20 somethings who came of age during the early aughts, this book is an unflinching indictment of toxic masculinity and how it exerts its force on the personal and the global. This book follows a group of old high school friends crashing back together on one fateful and devastating night, and examines the ways that we all try to create stories out of memory, and the consequences that lay within. An incandescent debut novel from Stephen Markley.

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bookhoarder2022's review against another edition

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dark sad slow-paced

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

2.0

I went into this book with high hopes & a friend’s recommendation.

It took me 6 months to read it, because I just couldn’t get GOING.

Once I finally made progress, my average expression was a grimace: there are so so so many fatphobic descriptions I could barely blink without some other mention about how someone was less attractive than high school with weigh gain playing a part every time.

Speaking of attraction, there is so much longing in this book for HS lovers the now almost-30-year-old main characters want to get back to & HS sexcapades that honestly just feel gross to me, reading as a just-turned-30 myself & thinking about my HS self. It’s weird.

Overall, there’s a strange way that HS seems to possess the minds and hearts of these characters in a way that just disturbed me.

2 stars for excellent characters (even though I found them miserable) & some interesting plot decisions. Would not read again.

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