Reviews with content warning for Religious bigotry - Midnight Is the Darkest Hour

Reviews tagging 'Religious bigotry'

Midnight Is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead

66 reviews

rawan03's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I feel like the first 2/3 of this book were just dragging on. I didn't really feel that excited to pick up the book, I just wanted to finish it. The mystery was good but for a while, I was just kind of like "okay, and ??". It definitely picked up in pace and intensity in the last ~50 pages which I liked.

That last scene in the church had me dropping my jaw, I did not expect her dad to die like that tf. As he deserved though, men are so trash.

. There were some scenes where I was scared this was turning into a horror but I was glad that it didn't get too dark or graphic so very slay. Would I ever read this again? Probably not, but the only reason, I didn't rate this any lower than a 3.5 stars was the last few chapters. There were also some quotes in here that I thought ate up, so I marked those. Maybe my religious trauma affected my enjoyment because the monologues had me wanting to die but we got thought it. Also, my daddy issues were active and thriving while reading this because wow 😀. It was good, just did not blow me away, which is alright!

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shannonweiss's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This book introduced the ultimate horrors - religious zealotry and extremism, and the uncontrolled and unrestrained desire for power - and it was so so good. As someone with some religious trauma of her own, this was hard to read at times but the ending was so satisfying.

I adored Everett and loved Ruth’s transformation.

Love that Everett and Ruth took justice into his own hands and they became “the low man” together in the end

.

Would love to read more stories like this, I really enjoyed this.

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kaylinvm94's review against another edition

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dark tense

4.0

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jmkendall0218's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-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

3.0

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gwenswoons's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I’m an Ashley Winstead superfan (ever since reading The Last Housewife! Maybe my favorite thriller ever?) so it pains me that I really didn’t love this one. I found the pacing and narrative too slow and too local — the main character seems almost willfully naïve, both in the flashbacks (which, fine, teenage kid raised in a bigoted evangelical church, I get it) and, more irritatingly, in the present. The setting is vivid and the characters are interesting! But I felt over and over like this could have been considerably shorter — edited for less repetition, for hemming and hawing that, even if it perhaps felt necessary to Winstead for character building(??), wasnt always the same. I think this book somehow gets a little stuck between trying to be beautiful in the language and world-building and leaning into Winstead’s huge skill as a craftsperson of plot, tension, and thrill. There was a really exciting crescendo for a bit toward the end (though the end itself…..huh?), so I bumped it up to 3 stars — but the majority of the book felt like a 2ish-star slog to me. I thought Sarah Welborn’s southern-accented audio narration was really well done, even if it somehow also underlined the things about this book that didn’t really work for me (repetition, fluffy/insubstantial inner dialogue, etc.). I will still pre-order and read Ashley Winstead’s other books (I’ve read all but one romance from her backlist — her romance writing is really good!)! But this one was not a fave for me.

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phoenixlovesbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense slow-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

3.5

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ickijones's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

It was mid. I was listening to this while reading another book. I thought I would like this more over the other, but it turned out to be the opposite. My interest in the story waned in and out. Sometimes I would want to continue listening on and other times it was boring and I had a hard time paying attention. The ending was...fine. I sort of expected it at a certain point. I didn't really like either Ruth or Everett, but

I did like the insight towards the latter half that Everett, while some of murders benefitted Ruth, wasn't this endearing vigilante who just wanted to protect Ruth. He had his own agenda for killing people and, to me, it seemed almost like it was inferred outside of Bottom Springs that he would look for reasons to justify killing others. I also did think the whole chapter where Ruth asks him if he's some sort of vampire was funny. It seemed to indicate her naivete that she would truly think he was some sort of supernatural being rather than just being a killer.

While I wasn't fully interested in the story, I think Ashley Winstead does know how to paint a pretty pictures with words. Even if it's not to my taste.

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tjsayler's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No

2.0

Listened to audiobook. I found it hard to stay engaged. Some parts were slow and uninteresting to me.

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lauracatereads's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

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

4.75

This book was WILD. (P.S. for sure check the trigger warnings on this one).

At no point did I have any idea where exactly it was going until about 70% through in which I knew exactly where it was going and it had the biggest “oh shit?” moment of a book I’ve read in a very long time.

Where to start on this book? First of all, this is for the girlies who were raised in oppressive, fundamentalist churches in the South. Raise your hands my fellow Jezebel spirits. 🙋🏼‍♀️ This book would not have been remotely the same without the setting and what a wickedly beautiful one it is. Swamplands, humidity, supernatural storms, LSU references, Bible bumper hypocrisy, the Piggly Wiggly? You name it, Bottom Springs has it.

These characters were wicked and I loved it. Not morally grey, just straight up kinda morally evil. I had to sit there most of the novel and say “Cool motive, still murder” and yet Winstead writes it in such a compelling way and paints Ruth & Everett with just enough of a sentimental light that you want to sit there and say that it was all justified. (TBH, it kinda was

although Everett was totally a complete and utter psychopath

Also the finale??? should not have given this book any bad reviews, it was FANTASTIC. I love an unresolved ending. If you don’t have the imagination to make an ending for yourself than you simply just aren’t much of a reader. Anyways, nothing good starts in a getaway car 😉

Ruth Cornier, you would’ve LOVED Preacher’s daughter by Ethel Cain. Everett Duncan, you would’ve LOVED I Did Something Bad by Taylor Swift.

The only thing stopping me from 5⭐️ is the combo of Ruth’s naivety and the constant miscommunication trope that could’ve saved them so much.

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malliexreads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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