booktribe's Reviews (603)

A Murder mystery with psychopathic main characters? I love it! Seven college students join a clinical study for psychopaths. But when the participants start turning up dead, three students decide to take matters into their own hands and find the murderer. Especially since one of the participants can use these murders for their own gain…

     This book was so innovative and refreshing. It hooked me from the first page because I’ve never read anything like this before and I’m so happy that I have now! The characters were so interesting. Who would’ve thought that an author could make me like psychopaths? Well, Vera Kurian did! And the writing was so engrossing, it was so hard to put this book down! 

     I only had a couple of complaints about this book. The first one is that the description of the book was a little misleading. This is a multiple point of view book, but I had no idea from the description. I think having multiple points of view definitely added to the story, and I think each one was important. However, you should be able to tell from the description that the book isn’t just told from Chloe’s narration. The other points of view are just as important as hers. And my only other complaint, which is what kept the book from being a five-star read for me, was that the big reveal didn’t excite me. The story kept me guessing and I had several theories on what would be revealed. But I feel like the least interesting thing happened. The final reveal left a lot to be desired for me.

     Overall, I really enjoyed this book! The narration and characters were amazing! The pacing, the writing style, the suspense, all of it was great. I will definitively be reading more from Vera Kurian in the future!

Thank you to Harlequin-Trade Publishing/Park Row and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

TW: Murder; rape mentioned; suicide; adult/minor relationship; stalking

Weep, Woman, Weep is a novella about Mercy, a girl who’s whole family has been plagued by La Llorona’s curse. After a horrifying encounter with La Llorona, Mercy loses her best friend, and doesn’t come back unscathed herself. Mercy must fight to break this curse and take back her life.

     Honestly, I don’t have a lot of thoughts about this novella. It has a very lyrical writing style. It flowed very naturally. I cared about the characters and the romance towards the end. However, I had more bad thoughts about this one than good.

     The storytelling style narration was interesting at first, but it skipped around a lot. I thought the story would be benefit from being told in third person instead. And this story was not horror at all. It could’ve been if the scenes with La Llorona were fleshed out more. It’s more of a story about a woman coming into herself and taking control of her life, not a horror. I also got very bored of the story after her first real encounter with La Llorona. It’s like it peaked in that scene and went downhill from there because for most of the time after that, nothing interesting was happening.

     Overall, I do think this story could’ve been great if either: A. It was marketed as a “coming of age later in life” story instead of horror or B. If it had actually been horror and really utilized La Llorona’s potential for scares. I thought the message of breaking generational curses and coming into your own was great, it just shouldn’t have been labeled horror.

Thank you to Books Go Social and Netgalley for this arc! All opinions are my own.

TW: drowning; child abuse; colorism; domestic abuse