Marley
If you're chronically and/or mentally ill or are neurodivergent in any way, this book is not for you. The bottom line is “do whatever it takes to reach your target even if it literally almost kills you”.
This guy makes himself out to be superhuman and wears his self-inflicted injuries and near-death experiences like badges of honour.
While I understand that this was not the focus of the book and its research (perhaps another data gap to add), trans people weren't mentioned a single time, not even in the medical chapters. When obviously they should be included, especially since other intersections were included (such as race and social class).
Not entirely sure why the author is so obsessed with the gender binary; “he or she”, “him or her”, “male or female, it was hard to tell with the hoodie”, “man or woman, it was too dark to tell”. Just say “them”, “they”, “person”, “figure” etc, it's 2023.
Quite a bit of fatphobia as well, and an unnecessary rape scene that literally just existed for shock value.
Completely chilling in every sense of the word, the relentless pace and plot twists of varying impacts mixed with an excellent use of mini-cliffhangers makes this an absolute page turner and in terms of story and atmosphere possibly the best thriller I've read this year.
”Demons to some, angels to others” isn't true anymore, the Priest (“Pinhead”) is just straight up looking to take over the world and hell itself. The random mentions and descriptions of various creatures' genitals just felt out of place and in most cases entirely irrelevant to the scene. Barker's worldbuilding is still top notch, thankfully, and the main characters are well written and fleshed out (pun intended). I guess I just expected more ambiguity regarding the Priest
..talk about an anti-climax after the sudden plot twist. On page 54 I theorised that Freddy was Uncle Paul, something which Meg herself wouldn't suspect until page 210 or so. Which is also when the plot finally gathers some speed, but then hits you with ALL the twists all at once. The bits that were good were REALLY good, but overall it was a bit of a drag to get through.
A very good balance between fun and darkness, lighthearted but also deep and intense at times. I found the lore very intriguing and wish it would have been fleshed out even more. The characters felt very real and I even got genuinely angry at some of them, while truly feeling for others. Overall a really entertaining and well-written take on a murder-mystery, almost redefining the genre.
This is a study of what happens when people act before they think—which is how most people are when it comes to romance—and whether or not that's actually a bad thing. The characters are very recognisable, it's easy enough to put myself in their position and see the world the way they do.
Each chapter shows a countdown to something, which adds a layer of mystery to this frankly excellent debut novel!
including a non-binary character is lovely, if they hadn't already been dead before the story even starts, rendering the mention of their identity entirely irrelevant. Would have loved if the step-child instead had been non-binary. this is my second Jack Jordan book and he's two-for-two for having the “bad guys” be foreigners.. which, as a foreigner in the UK, does feel a little uncomfortable.
The sentences, while not only too long, but also too fond of commas, such like this, struggle to reach their, also kind of convoluted, conclusions.
The whole book is written like this. Thanks the stars it's only 83 pages and the page size is small while the font size is relatively big. An average of 5 sentences fit on a single page.
Content, when you actually find it between all the commas, itself is well-researched and the sources invite further reading.