Reviews with content warning for Body horror - The Forgotten Island

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Forgotten Island by David Sodergren

16 reviews

allly_x's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.5

In theory, this book has all the characteristics that check my boxes for a good horror. There are cosmic horror elements, gore, and suspense. However, it falls short in many areas.

I'll start with the things that I did like—spoilers ahead.

As I said, the cosmic horror element was exciting and almost well done. I liked that the monster was something you could harm but ultimately could not "kill"; you could just get rid of a single representation of it. I also liked that it doesn't have a happy ending, which, although it made for a somewhat predictable conclusion, was the only ending that made any kind of sense.

The final thing I enjoyed was the complicated relationship between the two sisters. Even though there was obvious tension between them, you as a reader are never made to question their love and care for one another. This was very refreshing considering the characters themselves and the other characters in the story, which I might as well get into.

Now, for the things I absolutely did not enjoy or understand the need for:

Why is every man a shitbag rapist in this? With only a single exception, every guy in this story is just the worst. The author couldn't even make the fake-spiritual hippie a non-rapist, at the very least. I honestly don't get how that advanced the plot in any way, and it was way over the top. It read too much like a stupid horror movie with an excessive sexualization of the characters that was also not needed at all, in my opinion.

There were plot points that went nowhere. For example, why was Ana seeing things? Why was her trying to kill herself at all relevant? It didn't help with making her character better, in my opinion, so why? Why was there such an emphasis on Ana's weight? Make her insecure—sure. Note that her sister is more attractive than her—still irrelevant, since there was no obvious rivalry between them and it wouldn't have made a big difference otherwise. But okay, so why the weight thing? All of it seemed pointless to me.

My last issue is that it felt like I was reading a man's POV with all of the characters. The female POVs did not feel authentic to me, and yes, granted, the author is male, but still, it made it that much more difficult to immerse myself in the story.

To wrap it up, I didn't DNF solely because I wanted to know what the monster looked like and if it would further disappoint with a happy ending (luckily, that is one sin it did not commit).

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readerfromtheblacklagoon's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

2.75

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alw0310's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

4.75

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agustdefault's review against another edition

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4.0

david sodergren is an insane person

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racheltheripper's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Interesting premise that is mostly well executed, but falls short in making me care about any of the characters. Maybe that was the point? Some actions and thoughts from characters seemed outlandish, though.

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kyra_joy's review against another edition

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dark slow-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

Honestly I haven’t been this excited to finish a book in a while, probably should have dnf’d it but I struggle to do that, and so struggled through this book.

First it could have been much shorter, it being so long allowed for it to get weirdly convoluted, this thing had way to much going on, the cosmic horror angle was way too much and I felt my eyes rolling into the back of my head by the 70% mark.

The characters are all the worst and not even in a fun way, and one of them it comes out of nowhere and was a terrible surprise. Even the main character is unlikable and annoying which is ironic considering how much she judges other people. I wish we had some people to root for even one, in the end I didn’t care about who died giving their death little impact outside of the gore.

The gore was there but the atmosphere wasn’t, and the stakes were none existent until maybe the very last page but I was so over it by then that I just didn’t care.

Giving it a 2 because even though I didn’t like it for the most part the beginning wasn’t the worst and only one of the characters truly made me hate them at that point, it had promise then they got to the island. And I liked the way it was written even if what was written I didn’t enjoy as much.

I think I’ll give this author another shot and hope his other books make a bit more sense.

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ghostams's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

The prologue draws you in to the horror elements and then you’re immediately thrust into a party scene. That is to say, the prologue /keeps/ you wanting to know what will happen to the party’s characters. Too many TW’s to list. The details of the book were so grotesque and fantastic it was truly horrifying.

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