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A review by mikathereviewer
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Summary of my review
Re-telling from Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of The House of Usher. It's about mushrooms and worm disease, but as horror, so the symptoms aren't realistic. Some intensitve moments made the story less scary and more funny (but they didn't happen that often). Sleepwalking was done here improperly (instead of leading the person back to bed without waking them up they are awoken, which one shouldn't do due it might causing severe panic and other symptoms in a sleepwalker). Some weird thoughts from the protagonist (only 1 scene). Some words (including one swear word) gets repeated quite often which can be off putting. Lastly, the book is medium-paced, scary moments start at 40% in the book.
I didn't know that this story was a re-telling from an infamous author, namely Edgar Allan Poe and I did actually knew the work title so every time the story said Usher I was like: I heard this somewhere before, but where?? Well, after some research I found it out again.
Anyway, coming to my review; The story was interesting even though I'm not a mushroom fan, or any other plants to be honest so I was a bit worried when the first sentence of this book started with 'The mushroom'. But it was a story I usually don't read. It felt a bit absurd sometimes with all the symptoms one can develop from a worm disease, but it was supposed to be scary so I get that. But if you want a realistic scary story, this one wouldn't be for you.
A lot of times I found the story more funny than scary. Probably a me thing as I also laugh at scary films at the most inappropriate times. But let me explain anyways why I thought it was funny; First of all the symptoms that aren't really real symptoms of what one gets when they have a worm disease. Like the childish talking and long stretching of words. But also the insensitive moments (I don't think the author makes any sensitive ones to be honest) where one just abruptly said something even though it was a shocking information. Like how one of the characters completely at random talks about incidents that happened a few months prior the arrival of Easton. Or also the cow moment. Maybe some found this story spooky but it was rather funny to me with all these aspects. (The ending by the way had a mix of being bad and funny)
Now we come to the points I didn't like.
First of all we start with scenes but due to me wanting to keep this review spoiler free I only include the exact thing that bothered me, which might confuses some that haven't read the book.
Scene 1: Easton seems to either be stupid or disconnected from his emotions as he wondered why something hit him hard, even though it was for the reader quite obvious why. I also hate when authors try to make a scene more dramatic by letting the protagonist disconnect from his emotions instead of just admitting what they feel (I think that's even more sad!)
Scene 2: A character was sleepwalking and Easton knew (thankfully) that one shouldn't wake a sleepwalker, but he did anyway and used the excuse that the house is shappy and that the sleepwalker could fall out of the window. Makes sense, kinda, but my problem is how he didn't use the solution of re-directing the sleepwalker without awakening them. Yes, one can and also SHOULD take the arm for example from a sleepwalker and slowly and might with talking get them to walk in a different direction. You can even bring them back to bed without them needing to wake up.
Scene 2.2: Same scene but just a weird thought of Easton. Instead of just bringing the character back to bed he was thinking about the arm hair of them. That was weird and we readers didn't even need this info. Like why was that there?
4. Reason; Is that (at least what I catched up on) that 2 certain things repeated itself very very often. First of all a swear word which made me at some point wonder if the author knows any others. And this one: ‘The dead don’t walk.’ It actually only appears later in the book, but as soon as it gets mentioned once it seems to not stop. And about 2-3 times we also get this phrase after each other, so written down twice, as if once isn't enough.
5. And last reason: The book was more medium-paced as it takes 40% of the book till it gets anywhere exciting. The introduction lasts a bit long and the horror only starts almost halfway through the book (40%). That's kinda disappointing as I expected it to come sooner.
Re-telling from Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of The House of Usher. It's about mushrooms and worm disease, but as horror, so the symptoms aren't realistic. Some intensitve moments made the story less scary and more funny (but they didn't happen that often). Sleepwalking was done here improperly (instead of leading the person back to bed without waking them up they are awoken, which one shouldn't do due it might causing severe panic and other symptoms in a sleepwalker). Some weird thoughts from the protagonist (only 1 scene). Some words (including one swear word) gets repeated quite often which can be off putting. Lastly, the book is medium-paced, scary moments start at 40% in the book.
I didn't know that this story was a re-telling from an infamous author, namely Edgar Allan Poe and I did actually knew the work title so every time the story said Usher I was like: I heard this somewhere before, but where?? Well, after some research I found it out again.
Anyway, coming to my review; The story was interesting even though I'm not a mushroom fan, or any other plants to be honest so I was a bit worried when the first sentence of this book started with 'The mushroom'. But it was a story I usually don't read. It felt a bit absurd sometimes with all the symptoms one can develop from a worm disease, but it was supposed to be scary so I get that. But if you want a realistic scary story, this one wouldn't be for you.
A lot of times I found the story more funny than scary. Probably a me thing as I also laugh at scary films at the most inappropriate times. But let me explain anyways why I thought it was funny; First of all the symptoms that aren't really real symptoms of what one gets when they have a worm disease. Like the childish talking and long stretching of words. But also the insensitive moments (I don't think the author makes any sensitive ones to be honest) where one just abruptly said something even though it was a shocking information. Like how one of the characters completely at random talks about incidents that happened a few months prior the arrival of Easton. Or also the cow moment. Maybe some found this story spooky but it was rather funny to me with all these aspects. (The ending by the way had a mix of being bad and funny)
Now we come to the points I didn't like.
First of all we start with scenes but due to me wanting to keep this review spoiler free I only include the exact thing that bothered me, which might confuses some that haven't read the book.
Scene 1: Easton seems to either be stupid or disconnected from his emotions as he wondered why something hit him hard, even though it was for the reader quite obvious why. I also hate when authors try to make a scene more dramatic by letting the protagonist disconnect from his emotions instead of just admitting what they feel (I think that's even more sad!)
Scene 2: A character was sleepwalking and Easton knew (thankfully) that one shouldn't wake a sleepwalker, but he did anyway and used the excuse that the house is shappy and that the sleepwalker could fall out of the window. Makes sense, kinda, but my problem is how he didn't use the solution of re-directing the sleepwalker without awakening them. Yes, one can and also SHOULD take the arm for example from a sleepwalker and slowly and might with talking get them to walk in a different direction. You can even bring them back to bed without them needing to wake up.
Scene 2.2: Same scene but just a weird thought of Easton. Instead of just bringing the character back to bed he was thinking about the arm hair of them. That was weird and we readers didn't even need this info. Like why was that there?
4. Reason; Is that (at least what I catched up on) that 2 certain things repeated itself very very often. First of all a swear word which made me at some point wonder if the author knows any others. And this one: ‘The dead don’t walk.’ It actually only appears later in the book, but as soon as it gets mentioned once it seems to not stop. And about 2-3 times we also get this phrase after each other, so written down twice, as if once isn't enough.
5. And last reason: The book was more medium-paced as it takes 40% of the book till it gets anywhere exciting. The introduction lasts a bit long and the horror only starts almost halfway through the book (40%). That's kinda disappointing as I expected it to come sooner.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Death
Moderate: Suicide, Murder, and War
Minor: Fire/Fire injury