charlottesometimes's Reviews (3.33k)

challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
dark mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This was like reading a relatively high-quality fanfic. Which is not a criticism of fanfic, but rather  a query as to why this piece of writing in particular deserves to be a novel. Still, if a 95,000 word Doctor Moreau fanfic set in historical Mexico and featuring an OC hetero-pairing is summat that you’ve been looking for, then I guess this is the book for you. Particularly if you like your stories nice and comfortable and predictable.

challenging dark informative inspiring sad slow-paced
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
emotional funny hopeful lighthearted fast-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
emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

This is presented as a teen horror, but secretly it’s a 200 page lecture. Apparently some schools in the USA use this as a teaching aid, which is worrying.
It also features some genuinely horrible parents; physically threatening people at a teen sports game, and bullying their child into taking part; commenting on the sexiness of their daughter’s potential boyfriend, which they noticed as soon as he passed puberty; smothering their daughter, whilst forcing her to basically run the household on their behalf like a mini-mum; deciding that they no longer love their children the moment they do something wrong, and telling them so; just being terrible, self-obsessed people with zero empathy and a tendency to drama. Just very poor. The best thing these kids can do is leave this oppressive small town and its creepy church folk behind as fast as possible.
lighthearted slow-paced

This was, frankly, dull. So many of the elements were repeated from story to story that it felt like reading 13 versions of the same basic tale. Generally they focused on an unfeasibly attractive cishet couple who were either already in love by the time the story started, or fell in love at first sight. The man was often unpleasantly pushy and arrogant, and the woman was usually judgemental of others of her gender for petty reasons. At some point the man would make a bad joke, but the woman would forgive him because he was hot. Then they would pair up and live happily ever after. That’s it. No jeopardy, no drama, no character growth. Just meetings and agreements to love each other forever. Nothing seemed real or worthy of examination, and it was very hard to care.
challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes