Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - The Cabin at the End of the World

3 stars (Rating might be higher if I was a regular horror/slasher fan)

I very much prefer psychological or gothic thrillers to the pure horror genre, and didn't quite know what I was getting into with this one. On top of that, this book is one massive example of the Trolley Problem, except that it's unclear if the consequences are real. The book does a great job of lending credibility to both possibilities and favoring neither. But gives hs absolutely no reason why the predicament exists in the first place or why the solutions would solve it. Felt very shallow and I didn't really care what happened to the characters besides Wen. The ending was not very satisfying to me and normally I don't mind open endings. Perhaps all this is why I didn't find all the violence and threats compelling. But also pleasant to read a story with normalized queer rep.

I strongly disliked Amy Landon's narration performance. Dialogue sounded stilted and over-voiced, over-serious, over-monotonous. Some of this was her struggling to do male voices, but some of this was a strange tone used for the whole text. This is not a book to listen to on audio for this reason.

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_morgreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

1.25

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spaceykate's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

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

1.0

honestly i fucking hated this book. nonsensical killing, bizarre author notes that make me think too many people were given participation awards as young children who should've been told to stop being so psychopathic instead (

who the fuck says they wanted to make sure when they shot a child in the face they didn't want to make it an emotional highkey moment? a legit psychopath. sick in the head.

), and pages and pages of background / environmental descriptors that made me flash back to skipping like 40 pages of frankenstein because it's was just all. descriptions. of. landscape. i don't need to know about the wood of the floor. i don't need to know about the blanket they brought from home, especially since it CLEARLY doesn't hold significance to the characters in its use. even the whole

four horsemen shirt colors and relatedish plagues

felt cheaply done, like paint on a pig. the only thing i liked in the entire thing was a fucking side note the author made:

the yellow lamp running bit

. made me sick to read it, because it really channeled this vibe that the author has no value of human life and that's yeah pretty sickening. but great read if you like that sort of thing.

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