bookishbutterfly's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Moderate: Blood and Murder
Minor: War
erebus53's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
The story focuses on a teen who is brought up in Florida and who has a close relationship with his Jewish grandfather who survived WWII. The man tells him fanciful stories and and shows him photographs of a children's home where he was raised with kids with special powers. The photographs look fake and a bit dodgy, so nobody believes his stories of special powers and monsters, assuming that they are the mentally divergent accommodations of a traumatised holocaust survivor. As the old man gets increasingly paranoid and the family are considering putting him in a care facility, his grandson goes to check on him, only to find that one of the monsters has got him.
Once his therapist okays the trip, he follows a set of clues in his grandfather's last words, and he travels with his father to a remote island in the UK where his father wishes to observe the local birdlife. There he puts together a puzzle that brings him into contact with people his grandfather once knew, and entangles him in further adventure.
Being set in Florida I notice that there is quite a bit of narrative about the treatment of the elderly. There is a focus on listening to the opinions of older people, and the ways that they are treated in society (there are a lot of rest homes and retirees in Florida, so this follows). I also encountered the term "lenai" for the first time. Intuiting that it was a type of verandah, I looked it up and realised that this common feature of houses in tropical climes was not unknown to me.. my Uncle has one similar to the pictures that I see in an internet web-search, and he lives in Australia.
The story is interesting, deals with alternate timelines and portals, and has a little bit of teen kissing, secret monsters, shape changers, levitating and snorkelling, and some stuff with common or garden necromancy, scary monsters, and sheep poo. This is the first part of a bigger story so it's not surprising that the end of it is a bit of a cliffhanger. I'd like to know what happens next.
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, Violence, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, and Gore
Minor: Kidnapping
kibberbl's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, and Blood
Moderate: Mental illness, Child death, War, Antisemitism, Stalking, and Excrement
Minor: Ableism, Suicide, and Fatphobia
vanesst's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, and Murder
Moderate: Excrement, Child death, Grief, Gun violence, War, Alcohol, Antisemitism, and Blood
spookily's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Alcohol, Death of parent, Death, Violence, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, and Murder
Moderate: War, Grief, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, and Genocide
Minor: Abandonment, Child death, Drug use, Medical content, and Infidelity
ilariasbizzera's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Death and Violence
Minor: War, Antisemitism, Genocide, Mental illness, and Blood
westonreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
- Liked how interesting the characters and the world building was.
- The images added in were very creative and I found it inspiring
- The only thing I didn’t like was the amount of characters and it was hard to remember who was who
Graphic: Gore, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence
Minor: Mental illness
insanebookperson's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Gun violence, Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and War
bleuennreads_'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
The story is very gripping, we immediately dive into this strange universe and I never got bored at any time. All the elements are well thought out and well connected, and I find that very satisfying because when you discover certain things, you remember what happened before and everything makes sense !! The story is also image based. I found it super original and I liked it a lot, it completes the story and makes it more real and "credible".
The only negative point is that the chapters are quite long so I sometimes had to stop in the middle of some, and I don't like doing that at all because it cuts out the action and when I took back my reading I did not really know what was going on.
Either way, I can't wait to read the following books to learn more about the characters and see how they will evolve and what will happen ! On the other hand, I discovered that there are five other volumes and I really wonder what the author could have invented to make it so long (I admit that it discourages me a little that there have so many volumes but I still want to know the rest).
Graphic: Death and Blood
Moderate: War, Antisemitism, Child death, and Gun violence
fe_aye's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Moderate: Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Grief, Confinement, and Cannibalism
Minor: Cursing, Death, Mental illness, War, Animal death, Blood, and Bullying