A review by dysisa
The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.0

I really dig the kind of modern sci-fi horror this is going for, it's a very cool premise. I think the problem that holds it back though, is that I think it's paced and structured in a bit of a weird way that doesn't quite work. The novel largely plays out the way you'd expect a horror story of this sort to, it's a quite by the numbers story. Opens on a horrid event, slows things down to get us into the rhythm of the main character, Lucy, before it kicks things up a few notches when the horrid event reemerges. Where it tries to sorta separate itself from that is with the really frequent inner monologues Lucy has. On paper I appreciate what the story is going for with them, but in practice it instead results in sometimes an entire page of Lucy fantasizing some scenario of what can or can't happen, all while in the midst of some really major and immediate event. It causes the story to flow very poorly, which is a shame as I really do think there's something cool past that. As a gorehound myself I won't claim to dislike how graphic things get in The Loop, but the really indepth and detailed explanations of every bit of gore feel overly excessive and could have probably actually been toned down too.