mferrante83's review
3.0
Man, I really wanted to love this book. The premise is pretty dame aces: a witch-hunting youtube star (she pretends her videos are elaborate fakes, they aren't) returns home to the town she left after her mother was murdered by witches. The characters are all set up with some tragic backstories (there are no less than the three characters with three, different, dead mothers); it makes for some interesting parallels between the characters but the handful of long info dumps that explore backstories and explain the world don't really work for me. There is a distinct divide between Wayne and Robin in the story and we never settle down with one character long enough for one aspect of novel to really stand out. The novel feels rushed and just as we get all of the characters on the same page it just ends.
booksthatburn's review against another edition
I stopped when the carbon copy of Lafayette from True Blood showed up. I already wasn’t enjoying the “transcript of a youtube video” style.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Murder, Gore, Cursing, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and Death
Minor: Racism, Drug use, Death of parent, and Animal death
dwmetz's review against another edition
5.0
Just finished reading *Malus Domestica* by +S. A. Hunt Phenomenal writing. This has been on my "to read" list for quite a while. Halfway through reading I was already dreading that the end would come too soon. Now I've got that "showhole" feeling.
lanidon's review against another edition
2.0
Dnf@40%
This is yet another book that wants to be a tv show. The writing has no fondness for the artform of the novel, it is simply written like a tv show that hasn't been funded yet. That is a style that will never be for me
Also there are a ton of characters that are just stereotypes personified which doesn't feel great. There's one guy who is an exact copy of Lafayette from True Blood, a flamboyant gay black man from the south who is never given any depth beyond that and whose only role is to play mammy/gbf to the more important woman of the story
This is yet another book that wants to be a tv show. The writing has no fondness for the artform of the novel, it is simply written like a tv show that hasn't been funded yet. That is a style that will never be for me
Also there are a ton of characters that are just stereotypes personified which doesn't feel great. There's one guy who is an exact copy of Lafayette from True Blood, a flamboyant gay black man from the south who is never given any depth beyond that and whose only role is to play mammy/gbf to the more important woman of the story
johnlynchbooks's review
3.0
S.A. Hunt and Tor come at you with a book that was described as The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets Supernatural. I don’t care about supernatural, but as soon as you say Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, you’ve got my attention.
For me, this was a book that had excellent potential, but the author wasn’t able to capitalize on it. The story was interesting, enough so that when I wanted to quit, I soldiered on. The protagonist was cool, I enjoy strong female characters, so that was a plus. The pacing of the novel felt off. It started off full speed, but quickly became bogged down before picking back up for the conclusion.
I also had a problem with the dialogue, it felt off. One character spoke a line with a noticeable speech issue, and the book said as much immediately following the Dialogue, only to have the same character speaking perfect english from here on out. Why bother putting that in there to begin with if only to drop it. Other characters are said to talk in southern accents, and then when the dialogue comes in sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. I normally wouldn’t care but it felt jarring to me.
Lastly, there was just something about the prose that frequently had me scratching my head. Words and sounds were used to describe things that just didn’t make sense.
At the end of the day, I felt this was a book with promise that wasn’t quite executed on. The story itself had its hooks in me enough to keep me going, but the execution of it I found lacking. This wasn’t for me, but if the premise sounds cool to you, is still say give it a shot.
2.5 rounded to 3 for goodreads
For me, this was a book that had excellent potential, but the author wasn’t able to capitalize on it. The story was interesting, enough so that when I wanted to quit, I soldiered on. The protagonist was cool, I enjoy strong female characters, so that was a plus. The pacing of the novel felt off. It started off full speed, but quickly became bogged down before picking back up for the conclusion.
I also had a problem with the dialogue, it felt off. One character spoke a line with a noticeable speech issue, and the book said as much immediately following the Dialogue, only to have the same character speaking perfect english from here on out. Why bother putting that in there to begin with if only to drop it. Other characters are said to talk in southern accents, and then when the dialogue comes in sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. I normally wouldn’t care but it felt jarring to me.
Lastly, there was just something about the prose that frequently had me scratching my head. Words and sounds were used to describe things that just didn’t make sense.
At the end of the day, I felt this was a book with promise that wasn’t quite executed on. The story itself had its hooks in me enough to keep me going, but the execution of it I found lacking. This wasn’t for me, but if the premise sounds cool to you, is still say give it a shot.
2.5 rounded to 3 for goodreads
otterforce's review against another edition
5.0
I didn't realize I was a fan of horror until recently. So while this book isn't my usual cup of tea, after having devoured [b:The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree|17840141|The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree (The Outlaw King, #1)|S.A. Hunt|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1366723253l/17840141._SY75_.jpg|24253191] and the rest of that series, I decided to see what this series was about.
I'll admit, it took me a bit to settle into the setting and characters, find my groove with the flow of the book. But once I did, it was a quick run to the finish and I'm looking forward to what's in store for everyone in the next book.
If you're looking for a bit of dark urban fantasy steeped in the South and with a diverse (and well represented) cast, Burn the Dark ticks a ton of boxes and tells a compelling story while it's at it.
I'll admit, it took me a bit to settle into the setting and characters, find my groove with the flow of the book. But once I did, it was a quick run to the finish and I'm looking forward to what's in store for everyone in the next book.
If you're looking for a bit of dark urban fantasy steeped in the South and with a diverse (and well represented) cast, Burn the Dark ticks a ton of boxes and tells a compelling story while it's at it.
phyrre's review against another edition
3.0
You can read my full review on my blog, The Writerly Way, here.
Many thanks to Edelweiss and Tor for an eARC in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
They got me with the Supernatural and Buffy comps, like the predictable bookwyvern I am.
I mean, who can even resist that? I’m only human … ish. The addition of a YouTube star seemed like a new twist, and I was interested to see what direction that ultimately took the story.
Burn the Dark is a dark, grim book about a woman seeking revenge against the witches who killed her mother. It’s full of humor, horror, and plenty of delightful, skin-crawling moments.
Now, I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t love this book, and I struggled to get through parts of it, but all in all, it was an interesting read. There was a lot of tension, and definitely moments that really creeped me out and kept me wanting more.
My Thoughts:
- Robin makes for a fun lead character. She’s tough and kicks butt and has goals. I mean, sure, those goals include homicide, but we all have our faults. She isn’t completely one dimensional, though, because behind that bravado, she has quite a few really vulnerable, honest moments, and I enjoyed that side of her, too. This story isn’t just about Robin hunting witches for the heck of it. It’s a story about revenge and betrayal, and Robin’s story unfolds a little at a time. There are things in her past that sort of surprised me, and there are things that even she doesn’t know that the reader gets to discover with her.
- When this book gets creepy, it gets freaking creepy. There’s a pervasive atmosphere in this book of something lingering in the darkness, just outside of sight. Or something dark and dreadful on the horizon that you can’t quite see yet, but you know it’s coming. I really enjoyed this, and all the little creepy things that happen along the way.
- This book is dark (in all the good ways), but it has just enough humor to keep it from being depressing or overwhelming. Now, I’m going to admit that humor is subjective, and some of the things were misses for me. Sometimes, the humor passed just normal joking or sarcasm and became something sort of absurd, where I was rolling my eyes rather than laughing. But there were quite a few times I was laughing out loud.
- This cast of characters is eclectic and fun and touches on all sorts of diverse walks of life. At times, the characters felt like caricatures, and I can’t say I particularly connected with any of them other than Robin, but they did certainly liven the book up. Even though I, personally, didn’t connect with the characters, I can see them being relatable to others. They’re just different enough that when they team up, it creates an interesting dynamic.
- This book felt a lot like Supernatural, and that can be both good and bad. On the one hand, I picked it up partly because of that comp. It has the same dark feeling, the paranormal layered on top of the real world, the whole vibe of “the monsters you thought were fake actually exist.” I enjoyed all of that. Plus, Robin’s personality reminds me a lot of Dean, and I’m all for that. Where this really fell down for me was that it was so similar that I kept comparing the two, and this came up short every time. To the point where I could guess major plot twists solely because I imagined the major plot twists in Supernatural, and sure enough, they fit that overall theme.
Sticking Points:
- There’s so many characters (point of view and otherwise) that are just thrown at the reader with no introduction or warning that I spent most of the book with absolutely no idea what was going on. Every time a new name popped up, I had to stop and wonder whether we’d met this character yet, because they were introduced as if we should already know them. The chapters aren’t labeled whose point of view they are or when in the timeline (though this is an ARC and that might change by publication), so it often took awhile for me to figure out what was going on. At times, it took so long to cycle back to a character that I’d straight up forgotten who they were, which made it even more confusing. This seemed to ease up around 70% of the way through, when I had a pretty solid grasp on everyone, even though I still mixed up some people here and there.
- I had a really hard time getting into this (probably because I spent most of the beginning being super confused), which means the story didn’t really start for me until around 25% of the way into the book. The beginning started with a whiz bang of action, but then it stagnated to a crawl as the book introduced a legion of characters. Sometimes too much action is just that. This cyclical pattern seemed to perpetuate through the book, where there would be a lot of whiz-bang action all at once, and then it would just peter out and I would sort of lose interest in the plot. When it was actiony, it was hard to put down, but there were long stretches when it wasn’t, and it didn't hold my attention.
- The YouTube channel struck me as an interesting twist, but I felt like it was underutilized. This was the real twist to an otherwise mostly tropy story, I thought, but it really didn’t add that much to the book, other than to allow Robin to brag about how well she’s doing financially and so that she doesn’t have to explain over and over again what she does. Instead, she turns on a YouTube video to show them what she does.
- Everyone ends up believing Robin about witch hunting waaaay too easily. This happened over and over again, each time with Robin expecting to be rejected or treated like she’s crazy (and rightly so), only to have the person believe her, and then she was super surprised. And so was I. I wanted a little more resistance and a bit more her earning the trust of the people around her.
Many thanks to Edelweiss and Tor for an eARC in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
They got me with the Supernatural and Buffy comps, like the predictable bookwyvern I am.
I mean, who can even resist that? I’m only human … ish. The addition of a YouTube star seemed like a new twist, and I was interested to see what direction that ultimately took the story.
Burn the Dark is a dark, grim book about a woman seeking revenge against the witches who killed her mother. It’s full of humor, horror, and plenty of delightful, skin-crawling moments.
Now, I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t love this book, and I struggled to get through parts of it, but all in all, it was an interesting read. There was a lot of tension, and definitely moments that really creeped me out and kept me wanting more.
My Thoughts:
- Robin makes for a fun lead character. She’s tough and kicks butt and has goals. I mean, sure, those goals include homicide, but we all have our faults. She isn’t completely one dimensional, though, because behind that bravado, she has quite a few really vulnerable, honest moments, and I enjoyed that side of her, too. This story isn’t just about Robin hunting witches for the heck of it. It’s a story about revenge and betrayal, and Robin’s story unfolds a little at a time. There are things in her past that sort of surprised me, and there are things that even she doesn’t know that the reader gets to discover with her.
- When this book gets creepy, it gets freaking creepy. There’s a pervasive atmosphere in this book of something lingering in the darkness, just outside of sight. Or something dark and dreadful on the horizon that you can’t quite see yet, but you know it’s coming. I really enjoyed this, and all the little creepy things that happen along the way.
- This book is dark (in all the good ways), but it has just enough humor to keep it from being depressing or overwhelming. Now, I’m going to admit that humor is subjective, and some of the things were misses for me. Sometimes, the humor passed just normal joking or sarcasm and became something sort of absurd, where I was rolling my eyes rather than laughing. But there were quite a few times I was laughing out loud.
- This cast of characters is eclectic and fun and touches on all sorts of diverse walks of life. At times, the characters felt like caricatures, and I can’t say I particularly connected with any of them other than Robin, but they did certainly liven the book up. Even though I, personally, didn’t connect with the characters, I can see them being relatable to others. They’re just different enough that when they team up, it creates an interesting dynamic.
- This book felt a lot like Supernatural, and that can be both good and bad. On the one hand, I picked it up partly because of that comp. It has the same dark feeling, the paranormal layered on top of the real world, the whole vibe of “the monsters you thought were fake actually exist.” I enjoyed all of that. Plus, Robin’s personality reminds me a lot of Dean, and I’m all for that. Where this really fell down for me was that it was so similar that I kept comparing the two, and this came up short every time. To the point where I could guess major plot twists solely because I imagined the major plot twists in Supernatural, and sure enough, they fit that overall theme.
Sticking Points:
- There’s so many characters (point of view and otherwise) that are just thrown at the reader with no introduction or warning that I spent most of the book with absolutely no idea what was going on. Every time a new name popped up, I had to stop and wonder whether we’d met this character yet, because they were introduced as if we should already know them. The chapters aren’t labeled whose point of view they are or when in the timeline (though this is an ARC and that might change by publication), so it often took awhile for me to figure out what was going on. At times, it took so long to cycle back to a character that I’d straight up forgotten who they were, which made it even more confusing. This seemed to ease up around 70% of the way through, when I had a pretty solid grasp on everyone, even though I still mixed up some people here and there.
- I had a really hard time getting into this (probably because I spent most of the beginning being super confused), which means the story didn’t really start for me until around 25% of the way into the book. The beginning started with a whiz bang of action, but then it stagnated to a crawl as the book introduced a legion of characters. Sometimes too much action is just that. This cyclical pattern seemed to perpetuate through the book, where there would be a lot of whiz-bang action all at once, and then it would just peter out and I would sort of lose interest in the plot. When it was actiony, it was hard to put down, but there were long stretches when it wasn’t, and it didn't hold my attention.
- The YouTube channel struck me as an interesting twist, but I felt like it was underutilized. This was the real twist to an otherwise mostly tropy story, I thought, but it really didn’t add that much to the book, other than to allow Robin to brag about how well she’s doing financially and so that she doesn’t have to explain over and over again what she does. Instead, she turns on a YouTube video to show them what she does.
- Everyone ends up believing Robin about witch hunting waaaay too easily. This happened over and over again, each time with Robin expecting to be rejected or treated like she’s crazy (and rightly so), only to have the person believe her, and then she was super surprised. And so was I. I wanted a little more resistance and a bit more her earning the trust of the people around her.
ankylia's review against another edition
4.0
*3.5 Stars
I really enjoyed this book! It had the promised Supernatural vibes, but also so much more. The horror elements were creepy and awesome, and the many details Hunt describes - which at first I wasn't so sure about - managed to really capture the atmosphere of Georgia in the fall.
There were, however, a few things that bothered me. The first one was the cliché and super negative portrayal of a clinic for the mentally ill. I just hated this. Also, while all the side characters were very likeable, interesting and three dimensional, I had my problems with connecting with the MC Robin. For me she felt like the one that was the least consistent and fleshed out, and I found myself caring much more for her friends. This book admittedly had its lengths, as it ultimately felt more like an introduction.
All in all, the story, the atmosphere and the characters are what kept me reading. If you are a fan of horror, Supernatural, Stephen King and the like, this book might just be the thing for you. I for myself will be looking forward to the next installment in the Malus Domestica series.
I really enjoyed this book! It had the promised Supernatural vibes, but also so much more. The horror elements were creepy and awesome, and the many details Hunt describes - which at first I wasn't so sure about - managed to really capture the atmosphere of Georgia in the fall.
There were, however, a few things that bothered me. The first one was the cliché and super negative portrayal of a clinic for the mentally ill. I just hated this. Also, while all the side characters were very likeable, interesting and three dimensional, I had my problems with connecting with the MC Robin. For me she felt like the one that was the least consistent and fleshed out, and I found myself caring much more for her friends. This book admittedly had its lengths, as it ultimately felt more like an introduction.
All in all, the story, the atmosphere and the characters are what kept me reading. If you are a fan of horror, Supernatural, Stephen King and the like, this book might just be the thing for you. I for myself will be looking forward to the next installment in the Malus Domestica series.