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alywise's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Death, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Mental illness, Rape, and Terminal illness
Minor: Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, Medical content, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and War
marliesje's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed reading the story through the several emails, texts and the occasional note. It allowed me to learn a lot of different things, from several perspectives. At first it was a bit hard to keep track of everyone and who they were but I ended up memorising most of them; and there are two cheat sheets in case you forget haha
Graphic: Cancer
Moderate: Death, Infidelity, Medical content, and Murder
Minor: Addiction, Child death, Rape, and Suicide
viiemzee's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Moderate: Cancer and Death
Minor: Rape
elatedbooks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
“A man can hide a world behind words.”
Interestingly enough most of the book is actually pre murder although I’m not sure how effective this actually was. I understand the trajectory it takes as it’s designed to drip feed us info however I feel like the point of using the epistolary form is that the reader can play detective. To this end it would have been much more effective to know the full cast list at the beginning (they only have the theatre groups’ names when really I needed explanations of who the obscure people that only pop up once or twice were) & the specific questions the detective sets out for his juniors.
REGARDLESS I think the biggest flaw is that the solution isn’t guessable & is actually pretty outlandish. So while I enjoyed the reading experience on this, it fails on the main marketing point which I feel was to be able to ‘play along’.
Moderate: Rape
Minor: War
toofondofbooks_'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
What I can tell you is that this is a murder mystery wherein you are provided texts, emails, and other bits of evidence for the case and are basically meant to solve it alongside the two young lawyers, Femi and Charlotte. I loved how this book was written *so* much. I'm nosey, so I loved the feel of reading people's emails and snooping around their shit. Plus, I really enjoyed actively trying to solve the mystery. I broke my tabs out, I got out my pen and my journal, and got to work. I simply had the best time. I can't BELIEVE that this is a debut novel. This author is a total auto-buy for me from here on out.
Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical content, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Excrement, and Stalking
Minor: Animal death, Hate crime, Vomit, Kidnapping, and Alcohol
odrib's review against another edition
- 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
3.0
Graphic: Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Mental illness, Stalking, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Bullying, Death, Medical content, and Murder
Minor: Addiction, Child death, Infertility, Infidelity, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Excrement, and Colonisation
kstericker's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Cancer, Death, Infidelity, Terminal illness, Medical content, and Murder
Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Child death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence
Minor: Drug abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, and Pregnancy
kylieqrada's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Cancer, Terminal illness, and Murder
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Addiction, Rape, and Sexual assault
embey'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? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Moderate: Addiction, Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Infidelity, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Excrement, Medical content, Kidnapping, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, and War
Minor: Racism and Torture
yuunoel's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Intriguing format.
The Appeal by Janice Hallett is a novel that is told by emails, notes, and text messages. It is certainly one of the most unique ways to tell a story.
You can tell that this book is well-thought-out. If you were to re-read this, you can find little snippets of text that allude to the murderer. Uhm anyways, that's the only good thing I can think of. ✌
It definitely is an interesting format, but it gets stale when you just read emails over and over again. Multiple times I just wanted to DNF this book. I originally wanted to make a board full of notes with the red yarn and potential suspects like in murder mystery movies, but when I found out the sheer amount of characters, I quickly stopped doing that. None of the voices are distinct enough to differentiate them apart. The story was boring. Especially in the first half. It only gets exciting around the 60% mark, but even then I thought it was too late for me to get fully invested in the storyline and the characters.
Speaking of characters... I hated them. Not one character I like. They all seem like insufferable shits and if I were to meet any of them in real life, I would run in the opposite direction. Now, don't get me wrong, I love morally grey/imperfect characters. But the thing is, there has to be at least one redeeming quality in them. Like, they could be a villain who can blow up buildings and people without a second thought, but simultaneously they are kind to animals and frequently volunteer at animals shelters??? Yes please. 🥰 You are now one of my favourite characters. None of the characters have a likable trait, and even if they did, I wouldn't know, because we can't read about their psyches. WE ONLY HAVE THE STUPID EMAILS THEY SEND TO EACH OTHER AND ALL OF US KNOW WE TEND TO ACT/SPEAK IN A DIFFERENT WAY THAN HOW WE THINK WHEN IT COMES TO OTHER PEOPLE'S PERCEPTIONS!!
I was initially going to rate this as 3 stars, but then I realized how many things I disliked about this book. The only reason I gave this 1.5 stars and not 1 was because of the notable style and the fact that it gets moving around the 60% mark. Would I re-read this? No. This will probably be one of the murder mystery novels I will not be re-reading. Would I recommend this? If you find joy by sitting through emails and picking them apart one by one.
- noel
Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, and Mental illness
Moderate: Infidelity
Minor: Child death and Rape