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A review by pagesplotsandpints
Past Crimes by Jason Pinter
2.75
Read Completed 3/16/24 | 2.75 stars
When I saw the description for this book, I immediately jumped on it and wondered why I hadn't seen it talked about before now. Black Mirror meets Ready Player One!? How was this not buzzier? But eventually, I knew why.
Look, this wasn't a bad book. It was entertaining, but it lost some steam at the end for me. The synopsis did deliver, but it was the tone that I didn't connect with. Maybe it would have been better as a physical book and not with a higher-pitched female audiobook narrator because it just had this tone of being lighter and sillier than I thought it was going to be. It was still plenty dark (I mean, hello, murder Disneyland...) but it just felt a little campier and not as gritty and dark as I was hoping it would be.
I liked the characters and the found family they gathered from each other. There was a fun V.E. Schwab book/name drop that had absolutely nothing to do with this book whatsoever but I appreciated the author's taste 😅
Overall, I just really lost steam with this story. Things started to get weirder and even more campy, taking some weird turns where I think I just wanted the story to be more grounded and focusing more on some nitty gritty plot. It just never really got under my skin like I wanted it to, but it was fast, easy to read, and still entertained me. I checked out a little at the end so I didn't rate it as high as three stars, but I wouldn't discourage someone from reading it.
When I saw the description for this book, I immediately jumped on it and wondered why I hadn't seen it talked about before now. Black Mirror meets Ready Player One!? How was this not buzzier? But eventually, I knew why.
Look, this wasn't a bad book. It was entertaining, but it lost some steam at the end for me. The synopsis did deliver, but it was the tone that I didn't connect with. Maybe it would have been better as a physical book and not with a higher-pitched female audiobook narrator because it just had this tone of being lighter and sillier than I thought it was going to be. It was still plenty dark (I mean, hello, murder Disneyland...) but it just felt a little campier and not as gritty and dark as I was hoping it would be.
I liked the characters and the found family they gathered from each other. There was a fun V.E. Schwab book/name drop that had absolutely nothing to do with this book whatsoever but I appreciated the author's taste 😅
Overall, I just really lost steam with this story. Things started to get weirder and even more campy, taking some weird turns where I think I just wanted the story to be more grounded and focusing more on some nitty gritty plot. It just never really got under my skin like I wanted it to, but it was fast, easy to read, and still entertained me. I checked out a little at the end so I didn't rate it as high as three stars, but I wouldn't discourage someone from reading it.