Reviews with content warning for Death - Dead Dead Girls

The book was really good, and I really liked how Louise got involved with the case and how passionate and intense she was about solving it. However, the setting of 1920s NYC comes with heaps of racism, from racist casual street comments to death and rape threats to the main plot of the story - young black women being brutally murdered by a serial killer. So while the book is very well written, it's not always enjoyable.

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a_wilz's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious relaxing tense fast-paced

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

4.75

I really enjoyed this book. I've been looking to find a mystery series with a queer lead who is also POC so when I found this at a bookstore I immediately bought it.

I figured out the murderer fairly early on but that didn't stop me from wanting to keep reading. However, since I figured it out early I was hoping for a bigger payoff at the end. The big final scene lasted only a few pages and then the book ended which seemed very anticlimactic. Since I truly enjoyed the book overall and couldn't put it down I only rated it down slightly for the quick ending.

I can't wait to dive into the second in the series and hope there will be more!

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agiali's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

*:･ﾟ175/ 108

This novel had a really strong start but ended up losing me for the last 75%. I didn't guess the twist, but once the main scene happened it fell so flat. It wasn't as epic as a normal built-up climax would be, and a lot of questions were left unanswered. I am aware this is going to be a series so perhaps more will be answered in book two. I don't have plans on reading it, but it was a lot easier to get through than most readers have said. The writing didn't bother me as much as I anticipated, since that is the main critique in most reviews, and I found it a pretty quick read as well.

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tadow's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Predictable ending and anticlimactic structure for the last 50 pages. But this was so fun to read

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mandkips's review

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

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laurelconover's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I really did like this book, the author has a great ability to craft a world and depth, and I think the choice of making this in 1920s Harlem offered an element of mystery and newness that wouldn't have been able to have been betrayed if it had been set in modern-day. The characters were interesting, and the main character was enjoyable and likable without being too much, her flaws are evident but they are what make her a person and don't feel like something added to make her imperfect after the fact, which sometimes it feels like the characters are. At times she aggravated me with her short-sightedness and brash actions, but not in a bad way, it was just one of her flaws and was implemented into the story well.

This is not a book I think I will re-read read, although I can understand if someone else would, I felt like the mystery was a little bit too straightforward for my preferences, there was a bit of... foreshadowing? Omnipotent narration? whatever it is called, that basically *possible spoilers*

kinda told us who the killer is somewhat early on, and the mystery is to figure out why. I felt this clash slightly with the narrative structure because the main character does not know who the killer is, but the readers do which offers a strange dissonance to the overall plot that personally didn't work for me.

There is a SA scene involving the main character, although it is stopped, it is still mentioned and described in moderate to somewhat graphic details in real-time as it is happening, so please be cautious if this is something you are sensitive to.

There have been comments about sudden chapter endings, and choppy sentences, but I listened to this on audiobook and none of this sort of thing stuck out to me, so take that as you will.

I felt the *slight spoiler*

death in the middle of the third act

came out of nowhere and didn't add much to the story, and it felt like it was included to add drama and higher stakes and it didn't work for me.

One thing that I truly enjoyed and would love to see more of in any other book was how the LGBTQ+ characters were written. It wasn't the main focus of the book, and that was a very good thing. These were people first and foremost and your sexuality was only an aspect of who they were, not their entire person and I REALLY like how it was done.

Overall I would recommend this but I think this does read like a debut novel, there are a lot of good things in it but it does suffer from some major structural issues that, I hope, with time, the author will be able to work on and improve upon. I am definitely looking forward to her future work and how she will evolve and grow as a writer.

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talonsontypewriters's review

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I tried to eke it out because I hate DNF'ing things, but if it's still this difficult to trudge through very short chapters over halfway through it's probably just going to get worse. I hate to say anything that implies debut = poor quality, because that's just not true in so many cases (and subjective anyway), but unfortunately it does apply here, at least for me.

The writing is painfully dull -- very choppy and simplistic, walls of stilted dialogue with no differentiating character voices, all telling and no showing, so much repetition and so many epithets -- and the plot isn't interesting enough to make up for it. A sense of suspense is almost nonexistent; any foreshadowing is too frequent and heavyhanded to be effective. I do feel some level of intrigue, but mostly just to confirm my suspicions, and it's not enough to get me to power through to see. Subplots are present in abundance and go unresolved and unacknowledged for chapters at a time, with awkward pacing and scene/chapter transitions.

All that alone makes anything hard to invest in, but I also can't get a sense of really any of the characters: Everything about them is told and not shown, and none of them really stand out. There are a lot of side characters, and I had trouble remembering who some of them were. Even the setting falls flat -- without some slang and a few technology notes, it would be indistinguishable from the present day, which is really disappointing because 1920s Harlem has so much to work with... and it just is not there.

Dead Dead Girls has so much potential, but sadly it's not followed up on as it could be. Maybe I'll be able to return to it in a more patient mood, but for now it's a hard pass.

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whitneyonline's review against another edition

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So borrring. Tried to be ominous and forwshadow-y but ended up just spoiling the book. The pacing was absolutely in the gutter and there was no tension or suspense or mystery at all. I tried really hard to power through but at 40% of the way I'm letting myself throw in the towel.

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