Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Satsuma Complex

This is a terrible book with terrible dialogue. Imagine the class clown when you were 14 who would do all sorts of disgusting things for attention and say random things and make the same joke over and over and misuse words. Now imagine they are trying to impress you. This book should never have been published.

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isabeldotml's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I had lots of fun listening to this, very much reminded me of Athletico Mince (not just because of the voices). It included some pretty heavy topics as well and I think they were handled with care.

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lottselgar's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-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

4.5

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stagasaurus's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.25

Gary is such a shithouse. I did get annoyed by his passivity but that was believable. I enjoyed the talking squirrels.

Some sentences only Bob Mortimer could have got past an editor. My favourite one, "We each had an ice cream cornet made with the draft variety of ice cream that falls out of the machine at the pull of a lever."

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lucymosscrop's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-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

3.75

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bookforthought's review against another edition

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mysterious fast-paced

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

2.0

I love a good mystery (even though I don't read that many anymore), and even more so if any humour is promised so The Satsuma Complex sounded like just the book for me. I received a sampler from NetGalley (although I hadn't immediately realised it wasn't the full copy) and finished listening to it on audiobook on Storytel.

I'm not too familiar with Bob Mortimer and his brand of humour, so I wasn't really sure what to expect from this, but I was in the mood for a light read and to switch it up a little after lots of fantasy books. Unfortunately, this didn't really meet my expectations.

The premise was quite good and I liked the mystery aspect of it, though I won't go into any details to avoid spoilers. I tend to like stories where we don't really know which characters we can trust, and there was plenty of that going on here. However, for the most part, the characters just felt flat. I definitely appreciated the attempt at introducing a wide and varied cast, and there certainly were some colourful characters in there, but to me, they all felt very one-dimensional and I never actually started caring about any of them, which meant the stakes were very low whenever any amount of danger was involved.

I found the main character to be very annoying and... well, just not funny. I did like his relationship with his neighbour Grace and her dog, which I found wholesome and sweet, but he didn't really have much else going for him. I found it very hard to get through the book and was bored for the most part. I really only finished it because it wasn't overly long and I wanted to see if it would improve when everything wrapped up. The ending itself was good, but it didn't really make up for the rest.

This is by no means a bad book; if anything, I found it fairly average, just like Gary: not anonymous, but not memorable either. It probably just wasn't my kind of humour and others may like it a lot more, but this one just wasn't for me.

I received an advanced review copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

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zsuzsireads's review against another edition

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funny tense fast-paced

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

3.25

I enjoyed reading this book. The main character came alive from the pages, I really felt like I knew him. I found the ending predictable and the writing was a bit repetitive and shouty. The beginning was definitely better than the end.

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aniglen's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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