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A review by manikahemmerixh
Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones
3.0
STG has a unique writing style, using stream of consciousness for the majority of the book. I'm not sure if this is the case for all of his novels, or an artistic choice for this series specifically. Sometimes it works really well (the chapter titled The Burning stood out to me especially, as it provided a deeper insight to two of the characters that I thought was quite meaningful), but other times it can be pretty confusing and disjointed. I understand that under the circumstances that the characters are in, their thoughts probably would be all over the place, but it made the story hard for me to digest. It's too easy to miss things or lose track, and sometimes I honestly just didn't have a clue what was going on.
By the last 100ish pages, I was pretty weary of the long chapters and flow of the book so I switched to the audiobook, and that did help. I liked seeing Jade's growth from 17 to 22, and I think that the introduction of a new "history project" and the included e-mails were cool. There are a lot of overlapping story lines though, and more questions than you want as a reader at the end of a book, even if it is setting up for another book (and I doubt I'll be picking that one up anyway). It's not for me, but I do see how other people could find these book really exciting and unique.
A final note; in my review of the first one, I noted that all the slasher references weren't super reader-friendly, this one doesn't have that issue as much. As a sequel, though, it isn't one that holds your hand. You need to have a pretty fresh understanding of the content of the first book in order to follow this one.
By the last 100ish pages, I was pretty weary of the long chapters and flow of the book so I switched to the audiobook, and that did help. I liked seeing Jade's growth from 17 to 22, and I think that the introduction of a new "history project" and the included e-mails were cool. There are a lot of overlapping story lines though, and more questions than you want as a reader at the end of a book, even if it is setting up for another book (and I doubt I'll be picking that one up anyway). It's not for me, but I do see how other people could find these book really exciting and unique.
A final note; in my review of the first one, I noted that all the slasher references weren't super reader-friendly, this one doesn't have that issue as much. As a sequel, though, it isn't one that holds your hand. You need to have a pretty fresh understanding of the content of the first book in order to follow this one.