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valent1ne's review against another edition
Review probably contains spoilers <3
This book is SO bad. I literally cannot overstate how much I despise this book in every possible way. It was exactly the shitty detective story that I expected when I started reading, except somehow sooooo much worse.
I kept going after the first 25% because the not knowing would bother me - quite literally the ONLY thing it had going for it was the mystery. I only kept going after 50% out of pure spite, because I knew this review would be cathartic <3 And it will be. In the end, I've decided that everything else in this book FAR outweighs my curiosity. I'm done with this story.
Our main man (Dave Gurney) and his wife love each other. Allegedly. From the very beginning, these two are arguing over every little thing - they are soooooo petty, immature, and passive aggressive toward each other at all times, rather than, I don't know, talking and communicating like the adults they (apparently) are. Every single woman who shows up in this book (with exactly one exception, who I'll get to later) is incredibly attractive, "despite" their age, and anytime Gurney is so much as in the PRESENCE of another woman, he is imagining cheating on his wife with her. There isn't a single average looking woman in this book. Either he wants to fuck them or he's physically repulsed by them. (At one point he refers to a woman as a "sleek creature" ????? HELLO ??????????)
Additionally! Halfway through the book, and no woman has ever done anything to move the story along or advance the plot At All, with exactly one tiny exception. (Unless, of course, you count Gurney's ~inner conflict~ about whether or not to be a piece of shit.)
This book is chock full of homophobic, transphobic, and racist comments, often passed off as little witticisms between the main characters, who are (surprise surprise!) cops. Speaking of, this glorifies cops soooooo disgustingly much. NONE of you are the good guys here, and ESPECIALLY not Gurney. He's persistently (mentally) complaining about politicians <3 Sir you're literally a cop <3 Shut the fuck up.
Every character in this book (the man himself very much included) thinks that Gurney is Sherlock Holmes. He is not Sherlock Holmes. He DOES, however, constantly flip back and forth between "awkward humility" and an incredibly obnoxious pride in his "logical prowess." He quite literally met a man who spoke quickly and his first reaction was to suspect that it was because of cocaine. Sir. He has SUCH an "I'm not like other girls" complex. My dude, you are - and I CANNOT stress this enough - a fifty year old man called Dave. Just because you have the mentality of a middle schooler does not mean that referring to yourself solely by your surname makes you cool.
This story ALSO consistently portrays "bad" / "crazy" characters as ugly, undesirable, and often gender non-conforming. Three that come to mind immediately are the sole woman who Gurney doesn't instantly want to fuck - extremely overweight and more masculine in appearance, as well as on extensive medications for her mental health; the gender non-conforming "f*gs" who run the bed and breakfast where the killer is staying; and our main bad guy himself, whose main characteristic so far is that he "sounds like a man pretending to be a woman" and exhibits symptoms of psychosis and severe OCD, and is generally considered "insane" by the entire NYPD. (Also, for that last one, in every scene from his point of view he's with his mother, and there are A Lot of incestuous undertones and it makes my skin crawl.) Actually, all (implied) mentally ill people in this book are painted as dangers to society who need to be locked up / institutionalized.
One final point - you could just tell that the author was SO very proud of some of the descriptions in this book. And some of them are even good!!!! But approximately 98% of them added absolutely nothing to the story. This book could literally have been about half the length that it was and still told the exact same story, except in a way that was the TINIEST bit better.
In short, I hated this book with a passion and this review gave me the catharsis I've been longing for <3
This book is SO bad. I literally cannot overstate how much I despise this book in every possible way. It was exactly the shitty detective story that I expected when I started reading, except somehow sooooo much worse.
I kept going after the first 25% because the not knowing would bother me - quite literally the ONLY thing it had going for it was the mystery. I only kept going after 50% out of pure spite, because I knew this review would be cathartic <3 And it will be. In the end, I've decided that everything else in this book FAR outweighs my curiosity. I'm done with this story.
Our main man (Dave Gurney) and his wife love each other. Allegedly. From the very beginning, these two are arguing over every little thing - they are soooooo petty, immature, and passive aggressive toward each other at all times, rather than, I don't know, talking and communicating like the adults they (apparently) are. Every single woman who shows up in this book (with exactly one exception, who I'll get to later) is incredibly attractive, "despite" their age, and anytime Gurney is so much as in the PRESENCE of another woman, he is imagining cheating on his wife with her. There isn't a single average looking woman in this book. Either he wants to fuck them or he's physically repulsed by them. (At one point he refers to a woman as a "sleek creature" ????? HELLO ??????????)
Additionally! Halfway through the book, and no woman has ever done anything to move the story along or advance the plot At All, with exactly one tiny exception. (Unless, of course, you count Gurney's ~inner conflict~ about whether or not to be a piece of shit.)
This book is chock full of homophobic, transphobic, and racist comments, often passed off as little witticisms between the main characters, who are (surprise surprise!) cops. Speaking of, this glorifies cops soooooo disgustingly much. NONE of you are the good guys here, and ESPECIALLY not Gurney. He's persistently (mentally) complaining about politicians <3 Sir you're literally a cop <3 Shut the fuck up.
Every character in this book (the man himself very much included) thinks that Gurney is Sherlock Holmes. He is not Sherlock Holmes. He DOES, however, constantly flip back and forth between "awkward humility" and an incredibly obnoxious pride in his "logical prowess." He quite literally met a man who spoke quickly and his first reaction was to suspect that it was because of cocaine. Sir. He has SUCH an "I'm not like other girls" complex. My dude, you are - and I CANNOT stress this enough - a fifty year old man called Dave. Just because you have the mentality of a middle schooler does not mean that referring to yourself solely by your surname makes you cool.
This story ALSO consistently portrays "bad" / "crazy" characters as ugly, undesirable, and often gender non-conforming. Three that come to mind immediately are the sole woman who Gurney doesn't instantly want to fuck - extremely overweight and more masculine in appearance, as well as on extensive medications for her mental health; the gender non-conforming "f*gs" who run the bed and breakfast where the killer is staying; and our main bad guy himself, whose main characteristic so far is that he "sounds like a man pretending to be a woman" and exhibits symptoms of psychosis and severe OCD, and is generally considered "insane" by the entire NYPD. (Also, for that last one, in every scene from his point of view he's with his mother, and there are A Lot of incestuous undertones and it makes my skin crawl.) Actually, all (implied) mentally ill people in this book are painted as dangers to society who need to be locked up / institutionalized.
One final point - you could just tell that the author was SO very proud of some of the descriptions in this book. And some of them are even good!!!! But approximately 98% of them added absolutely nothing to the story. This book could literally have been about half the length that it was and still told the exact same story, except in a way that was the TINIEST bit better.
In short, I hated this book with a passion and this review gave me the catharsis I've been longing for <3
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Toxic relationship, and Violence
Moderate: Cannibalism, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Stalking, and Transphobia
Minor: Addiction
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