ufoparty's reviews
25 reviews

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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emotional funny hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

Quake by Richard Laymon

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adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

0.0

Funland by Richard Laymon

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dark tense medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

interesting premise but has many of the same shortcomings of laymon’s other books... although this book in particular brought a couple issues to the forefront.
one is that every character laymon deems physically unattractive is either evil or lacking morally in some way. fat characters are slobs and cowards, and fat women in particular tend to be hypersexual and desperate. if someone is “ugly” their personality reflects that. there are conventionally attractive characters who suffer similar moral failings of course, but it’s not intrinsically tied to their appearance.
something else of interest was imo the demonization of homeless people and the belittling of anyone who sympathized with “trolls.” harold and gloria were the only 2 characters who thought of homeless people as fellow human beings. without even the knowledge of what was going on in funland, other characters mocked this and thought the homeless as undeserving of sympathy because of their lack of financial and medical resources and proximity to those who have those resources. laymon addresses this uncomfortable attitude at least, having numerous characters admit to themselves or others why the sight of a struggling homeless person disgusts them... but i find the main problem to be that it’s never treated as a misguided, misanthropic viewpoint. heros and villains alike share this viewpoint, even the homeless girl among the good guys—who is, of course, not like those other trolls, being very attractive.
to be fair, i wouldn’t expect cops in a book much less one of laymon’s to be sympathetic to a minority group; that’s just realistic. i don’t believe that laymon agrees with everything his characters do, but what’s left out of his writing speaks volumes. this book pushes the idea that everyone hates and is frightened by the homeless, and the difference between a decent person and a villain is whether one murders them or not.

Island by Richard Laymon

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

2.0

without a doubt the dumbest piece of self-indulgence i’ve encountered in western horror

Content Warnings

Flesh by Richard Laymon

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dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

just okay because it had laymon’s obsession with boobs inserted in every scene. makes stephen king look exquisitely tasteful in comparison... he would’ve made this book fun

Content Warnings

The Midnight Tour by Richard Laymon

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dark tense slow-paced

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

1.0

worst slog of my life with pages of characters doing nothing but quipping back and forth and whole passages taken word-for-word from the previous books. richard laymon is convinced women love stripping at every opportunity

Content Warnings