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kimberlyswalters's review against another edition
- 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
4.25
Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Violence, and Murder
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol
felofhe's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Sexism, Violence, Dementia, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
sarahdenn27's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Minor: Alcoholism, Drug use, Gun violence, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, and Abandonment
toomanytbr's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug use, Gun violence, Violence, Murder, and Abandonment
gphemsley's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, and Classism
Minor: Alcoholism, Drug use, Vomit, and War
krytykesa's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
But the plot didn't catch me from the beginning. As a result, it was hard to understand what was happening, and when I finally did, I realized that I didn't care about any of the characters enough to find out the truth.
The whole book felt repetitive and disjointed.
Minor: Alcoholism, Mental illness, and Murder
xbernadette's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Moderate: Alcoholism and Gun violence
Minor: War and Classism
mercurialbooks's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
I don't know how to review this. The Twyford Code is excellent.
It is a puzzle within a puzzle and I can see people reading it twice to check through if they missed anything the first time.
I would absolutely say to everyone to make sure you have a physical copy of this book rather than audio or e-book, as flicking back to different pages will be something you want to do.
Essentially, an ex-con (Steve) wants to trace a teacher he once knew in secondary school that disappeared. He doesn't know exactly where to start so he goes back to ask his old school friends. They act shifty around the subject and it leads him to discover The Twyford Code. A code hidden within children's novels written during WWII. This author is no longer enjoyed by modern audiences due to her sexist, racist and elitist writing and is a great pastiche of Enid Blyton. Steve and his friends follow a trail of clues to try to discover what they mean, and how on Earth they are related to the former teacher never coming home. There are a lot of flashbacks to Steve's younger years, including his not so nice family life, so please check content warnings. But the whole thing is tied up with Steve's humorous point of view, he is often unexpectedly funny and quite without meaning to be.
The ending is NOT what you are expecting.
I found reading with Pigeonhole that a few readers dropped out quickly due to the format of the book. It is written as transcriptions of voice recordings. I think this bothered me less as I am not compelled to read each time stamp associated with the paragraph and could skim over them, but some others felt obliged to read them and they found this quite frustrating.
This had the best reveal of any novel I have read in a long time and I genuinely loved it. I'd not read The Appeal (also by Janice Hallett) but now it's all I want to read!
Graphic: Alcoholism and Violence
Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Death of parent
Minor: Sexism, Dementia, and War
_inge's review against another edition
3.0
What also doesn’t help is that the middle part seems to drag a bit. The segments relating back to the past I especially couldn’t quite care about. I wanted to know what happened in the present, since that was tense and I was curious to see how the story would progress, so at the time it seemed the past was irrelevant to that.
Towards the end there’s suddenly a lot of twists, and the story slowly starts to make more sense. This is when I learned that a lot of the things which bothered me were all there for a reason, and I wished I’d paid closer attention to some of the details.
Hallett has again written a really clever book with a unique way of storytelling. This might mean it’s not always the most easy or enjoyable book to read, but it is very cleverly done and I’m keen to figure out what happened exactly (because I’m still not too sure!).
Graphic: Death
Moderate: War
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Gun violence, Mental illness, and Alcohol