Reviews with content warning for Forced institutionalization - Intercepts

Incredible. No notes. I loved the villain, I love the hero, and I loved the bystander. So horrendously messed up, incredible (and disgusting) imagery, phenomenal detail. It had me avoiding the dark corners of my house for days. Such a weird, fucked up concept that I feel is not out of the realm of possibility for the US Government. The ending had me almost in tears, the middle had me gagging, and I was so conflicted in feeling bad for certain characters. Also, I pictured Joe as Matthew McConaughey. I recommend that.

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gamerreaper13's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

T. J Payne does an awesome job of painting such a visceral and horrifying picture of...well nothing at all! The body horror was gory and fun and the mystery aspect was absolutely amazingly paced!! Payne has a fantastic way of drip feeding the audience information and letting everything settle in, giving us the satisfaction of putting all the pieces together ourselves.

The twist at the end had literal chills running up and down my spine as everything came together.

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theaceofpages's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

I think this book can best be described as a horror in two (connected) parts: the horror Riley experiences with her grief and apparitions and the horror that the Antennas (dehumanised people that are part of a government experiment) face on a daily basis. And Joe, Riley's dad and a higher up in an antenna facility, is caught in the middle.

This book was... horrifying. Right from the start. And somehow it just managed to get worse and worse as it went on. The ways everyone's minds were being messed with and the ways that the line between reality and lies was blurred was done so well (okay, there was one scene where I was just confused about its inclusion (I literally started glancing around my room with my hands raised because it just came out of nowhere) but that's one of many).

As the book went on and everything kept getting worse as everything ramped up again and again. I just kept feeling more and more for Riley who was innocent in it all and was just going through an all around bad time. Joes should have been there for her. She deserves so much live and therapy. Everyone else? Yeah, they kind of sucked. Some understandably so, but I am still shocked by the amount of messed up things that happened in this book. Maybe some events were a little too convenient, but not so much that they veer into unbelievable territory. And the whole concept? Maybe the outcome of the experimentation isn't all that believable but the cruelty that lead to them actually happening is far too real.

And the ending... (not much of a spoiler but just in case)

As things started heading towards the conclusion my mind kept racing ahead due to a niggling little horrible thought in the back of my mind about where it could be going.

Overall it was so well executed. It's been a little while since I read this (I'm behind on reviews) and this one has definitely stuck with me. There are several ideas and moments that have stuck with me as if I read this yesterday. I'll be keeping an eye out for more books by this author!

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