Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Wranglestone by Darren Charlton

12 reviews

charthegoose's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book is great if ur looking for something kinda spooky for spooky season. I found Peter and Cooper to  be lovable and easy to root for. I also loved getting to know the area of Wranglestone and the world these characters live in. The plot twists kept me hooked throughout the story.
However I felt the sexual assault themes were kinda unneeded and it wouldn’t have  affected the story if the kidnapped characters were kidnapped for a different reason, especially as these themes weren’t deeply explored.
despite this overall I though this was a great book and I would definetly read the next one 

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abi_sarah's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I loved this book! 

I’m really starting to enjoy this type of fantasy. I never thought I’d be a zombie apocalypse kinda girl, but I loved ‘The Last of Us’ TV series, really enjoyed the ‘Fallout’ TV series and now this book! 

I thought the premise of the lake acting as the barrier between the living and the dead, made for a really interesting novel. (Although it did remind me a lot of a certain ‘Game of Thrones’ episode 👀) I liked how human the living were in the way they were in complete denial about what was looming, until it actually happened. 

I enjoyed the romance element of the story (I know?!? Who even am I?!) and thought it fitted in really well to the story and added an emotional dimension to the whole thing. 

The writing of this novel was excellent, I was gripped from beginning to end. The only reason it took me this long to finish it was because I was listening with my partner, and getting him to sit down and listen to an audiobook is a difficult task 😅

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markwillnevercry's review

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2.0

Not gonna lie, it felt a bit all over the place. In the beginning I was like, "Ah, it is going to be about Peter learning to kill the restless one and thinking about that process, as a deeply emotional person he is", but nah, that was not the problem. I have a feeling, that there were many ideas, that the writer wanted to involve in the story, but either couldn't think through them well enough or simply didn't have enough space in the book. The general strokes of the story are really nice, but there were some places that made it questionable. The short chapters are nice, but I did not understand most of the times why one chapter would end and the other begin, sometimes in the middle of the scene even. It just felt a bit strange. Overall, it was an enjoyable reading experience, I just wish it was better. 

Reading notes:

Why did he throw away the alarm? Shouldn't he keep carrying it to attract the dead?

And the community is just okay with Bud basically killing someone, by making them a bait and not fully informing them?

Now Peter is going to take over Mr Schmidt's job? Where is this story going?

Bro, the sex scene, bring out the fans, bois, it be steamin hot. 

I have a feeling, that the writer of this book is not too fond of capitalism, seeing how Cooper reacts to the idea of wanting to be born before shit hit the fan. (this is never mentioned again, they never again think about being born at some other time)

Did we really need the scene where they kill Essie? Like, there was a bunch of blood already spilled and it does not really make sense to kill her in such a flashy way. 

So we just leave the rest of people and have just Peter, Cooper, Tom and Becky????

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axel_p's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The beginning kinda sucked, but after that it was amazing.

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lilifane's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad 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

3.0

This was purely a cover buy, which I'm still loving. I wasn't expecting this to be a great book... and it wasn't. The writing is... bad. Really bad. I would describe it as inconsistent and clumsy, same applies for the characters. The plot is all over the place. But I kind of liked it? There were some mysteries and twists I was interested it. And although I liked the characters, I didn't love them. Still, I was rooting for them. Also, the setting and atmosphere are really cool. I liked the national park sceneries, the community on small islands on a lake surrounded by mountains. 
Probably wouldn't recommend it, but I don't regret buying it. It's really pretty. 

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numerous_bees's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-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? No

2.0

I try to go easier when reviewing YA books - I'm not the target audience - so I'm not going pick on the themes for being heavy handed or the writing for being clumy or the characters for being and acting like teenagers. Those aren't faults but a quirk of genre, but this novel didn't work for me structurally. 

The first issue I ran into was that the author uses a lot of similes in an attempt to create a voice for the character and I found them be distracting and occasionally inappropriate for the situation.

The second thing - the one that really turned me off - is the sudden slavery/sexual assault plot point that shows up at about the 75% mark, lingers for a couple of chapters, and is dropped and barely brought up again. The sex abuse in particular is completely out of left-field, totally uncalled for, and adds nothing. I'm of the opinion that something that serious needs to justify it's presence in a story, and this didn't. 

The racism metaphor that followed the slavery plot point only served to highlight the lack of racial diversity in the cast. 

Finally, the climax is emotionally hobbled by how little we see of Peter and Cooper's community - the main(?) villain gets an emotional monologue where they try to justify their decisions, but they'vebarely featured in the story to this point and, despite Peter waxing poetic about how many happy memories they had together, we didn't see those events and Peter hadn't thought about them until that point, and I simply didn't care about this character or their motivations. 

It's a shame, because I think that the concept of a queer romance novel set against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse has a lot of potential, but this book isn't really that. It starts off as a romance but ends as a survival adventure, and I don't think it did a good job of transitioning between the two genres. 

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jjjreads's review

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

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nevermoregothic's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-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? Yes

5.0


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magpi3's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a little slow to start but it started running once it got going. The events towards the end were a little jumbled but it was an excellently crafted story. Romance was sweet if a little quick but they are both teenagers which fits. I liked Peter being softer and being able to be soft in a post-apocalyptic world, it’s something most books don’t even consider.

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reubengood's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

Wow, what an amazing read! The first time I've read a book in one day for quite some time! It was absolutely gripping and I can't wait for Timberdark!

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