eggcatsreads's Reviews (480)

 

I am only briefly acquainted with the myth of Medea, so there are a bunch of places I am not fully able to consider whether they stick true to the myth or whether they are the author’s changes in liberties.I did, however, know enough of the myth to want to read this book to see how exactly our central character decides to enacting her revenge on Jason for betraying her, and I’ll be completely honest, I was a bit disappointed. 

Medea in this novel does not have much agency in the actions she takes - I believe the only thing she’s ever done on her own was when she, as a child, turned her brother into a pig. Otherwise, practically every other decision she makes is due to the manipulation of Jason, and she has no agency in these actions. Her father is a terrible man, as is her brother, and yet it is only when Jason backs her into a wall that she decides to kill him to save herself, and she feels guilt for such actions. In the same way, every murder Medea does to help Jason with his goals is a task given to her by Jason - but the instant she faces any backlash for such actions, he gaslights her into thinking it was her own decision and that he is innocent. I have no issues painting Jason as a less-than ideal suitor - but it’s a little disconcerting that practically every decision Medea makes that sends her along her darker path isn’t one she makes on her own. Up until the very end, she practically has no agency and is only a vessel to follow Jason around as he uses her as he wants.

I thought it was interesting that during a conversation with Atalanta, who states that women in stories can only be villains or love-struck damsels, that this book does the exact same thing to Medea. Everyone around Medea sees her as an evil witch - while this book attempts to paint these very same actions as something that she only does out of love for Jason, and not by her own merits. Even her very last actions done to hurt Jason (I won’t say what in case you’re unaware of them) I found to be very lackluster and boring. I was expecting her revenge to not only attack the woman he’s leaving her for, but for the only people Jason cares about - and, yet, in what is probably the most memorable thing Medea does - she’s barely considering Jason’s feelings, and is doing it out of naive love - and not revenge. I also found the ending to be a bit odd, with Medea suddenly doing a full 180 to her previous actions - and yet, she is taking care of her ailing father. 

This book felt like it couldn’t decide whether to make Medea a villain or misunderstood damsel, and so instead attempted to do both. She is evil and embraces her darker side when it benefits her, but immediately after she feels guilt for these actions and tries to remedy them. I think I would have enjoyed this book much more if Medea was allowed to embrace her more villainous side, instead of Jason almost forcing her into that role until she has no other choice left.

 

I think I may have to DNF this book at about the 42% mark. There were a few things that didn’t work for me, but notably the first thing that caught me off guard is that the race of slaves described in this book are all lighter-skinned than those who own them - and this is mentioned quite a few times. I only found one other review mentioning the possible racism in this book, and really tried to continue reading to give the book a fair chance since this isn’t a large author or publisher(*this statement isn't true, but I found out later), but I do want to include this in my review so no other readers are caught off guard. I really think this book should have at least one, or a few, sensitivity readers added to it before the final product, as I think the concept of this book could be good if we removed the uncomfortable undercurrent of racism running throughout it. 

I tried to continue reading past this initial point without too much judgment, hoping that it was just shaky worldbuilding, but this specific trait kept coming up. It also feels a bit odd that so many named characters are intentionally described as being “mixed” and this being obvious by their lighter skin, and that so many of the antagonists in this book are not. I’m not saying this was intentional, but it just didn’t sit right with me that an entire race of people - quite literally called “The Peaceful People” - live in forests, have no words for war, and are regularly enslaved by those with darker skin than them because they’re too peace-loving to fight back. It just feels like a really weird combination of the “noble savage” trope, as well as the idea that light-skin is somehow related to morality. 

After the first part that specifically mentioned a character’s darker skin forcibly relating him to the literal race of slave-owners - the first mention of skin color in this book - it caught me so off guard that I started highlighting every mention of skin color after this point. 

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I’m reading this book as an advanced copy, so any quotes I’m including are subject to change or not be included in the final product. However, they were in my copy so I’m relating them here. 

“Rif-Atten was <i>nearly as dark as a Ninelander </i>[group of people keeping the U-ru-ku as slaves], but he was U-ru-ku through and through, and eager to prove that fact <i>because of his coloring.</i>” - 3%

"'Are you part U-ru-ku or Chean?' Morrigan asked, noting his slightly <i>light-toned skin</i>. He was certainly <i>dark enough, </i>but surely there was more in his blood than upper-kingdom stock." - 9%

“All the slaves are fetched, that’s why they’re <i>so pale and fair. Bleached,</i> they are. <i>Without color or substance. </i>You can practically <i>see through them.”</i>

"Loren noticed the large man had just had a haircut. A thin strip of <i>pale skin </i>ringed his neck on an otherwise <i>deeply and carefully darkened complexion."</i>

The king (described with <i>”dark skin and hair -”</i>) who the enslaved woman at the beginning of this book was over twice her age when he bought her at 15. I’m mostly including this due to the fact that this isn’t the first time one of the people in this slave-owning society (remember, they all have dark skin) is attracted to or enters a sexual relationship with someone younger than them. It never says with the second person if the age is as concerning as a 15 year old, but it’s implied this second relationship is consensual despite the power imbalance. (There’s also a prince who marries and then assaults a girl of 16 (who is described as being as light as the race of slaves, even!) later in the book. This is seen as bad within the narrative of the book, but the visual of a violent darker skinned man assaulting a white woman didn’t help my initial feelings of unchecked racism within this book).
 
Mentioning the other man having an inappropriate sexual relationship with one of those of the enslaved race:

“You see, Senalin? He may have lived among the most egregious of slavers, but he doesn’t judge you for <i>your light skin. Rather, he judges me for robbing the cradle.”</i> -10%

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Now, the undercurrent of racism throughout wasn’t the only thing that put me off from this book, but it did sour the rest of my reading experience and make me less willing to forgive other slights and mistakes. I got the entirety through part one, and I felt not only were there too many POV characters, but that their chapters were mixed and included in a strange way. Timelines are all over the place, with one chapter happening and then another chapter either occurring before or after this chapter, but with no way to tell one way or the other. And then these two competing timelines would fight with each other, and so in the end I simply had no idea what was going on. This is not the final draft of this book, so it’s possible that the final product will add a timeline to each chapter heading, but since mine did not have one I was never certain who was doing what at any given time. 

I also felt like there was almost no explanation within this book to tell you what was going on. Brand new words and concepts would just appear and be spoken about, with not even an internal definition or any way for the reader to figure out what these characters were talking about. There is a page that gives character names, and while I believe a glossary would have not been amiss, practically every fantasy book I’ve read (even those with a glossary) usually give a brief in-world definition of new terms to allow the reader to easily follow along. I’m not asking to be info-dumped at every given moment, but I feel like this book went too far in the opposite direction to the point that I was reading entire chapters without understanding what was going on, what these worlds meant, or how it was even relevant. 

I think this, combined with how clunky the writing and dialogue itself was at times, that finally made my decision to stop reading entirely. Much of the writing itself felt awkwardly phrased, and concepts were written about in a very awkward fashion, that at many times it took me out of the story itself. 

For instance, this was one of the first times that made me quite literally pause and reread what I just read, as it was so awkwardly written.

<i>“Sky’s face was passive. It’s not that she didn’t feel compassion, only that she had been trained in the Queensguard to cycle through such emotions quickly and without conscience. Sometimes Morrign felt a twinge of guilt about that.

‘The threat of war has done what nothing else ever has, then?’ Morrigan said and her guilty thoughts quickly turned to worry. She, too, had served a term in the Queensguard before her mother died and she had been forced to rise to the throne. And as such, Morrigan had been trained to cycle through emotions as rapidly as Sky had.”</i>

There are quite a few sections with information this awkwardly included, but this was the first and most noticeable that I had to make a note of. As I continued to read, I just tried to focus on reading/finishing the book rather than continuing to make notes as it wound up not being conducive to attempting to finish reading. 

Finally, the characterization of a few of the women in this book kind of felt sexist-adjacent “not like other girls” to me - which isn’t the biggest issue, but since I’m including my other reasons for not finishing this book I’m including it here. 

The Queen is described as only being in her 30s, and yet, somehow, this makes her “old enough” to not be “jealous” of Sky’s beauty. (Because all women are in competition with each other for looks, and for some reason being over 30 means you must be too old to care). The chapters that included both the Queen and/or Sky were very awkward at points, and at times it felt like the author was speaking to me, directly, about how women are just as capable as men. It felt less like worldbuilding and more like “inserting strong female characters into this sexist world to be better than the men, haha!” 

The last instance of this before I quit reading, was when Sky seemingly took over an outpost and “figured all that out in less time than it takes most men here to find the shitter.” Not that competence isn’t realistic, but it is unrealistic for her to be seemingly great at everything she does without effort. Her entire character just felt very “the way Marvel writes strong women,” as opposed to anything else.

I’ll end my writing women rant with two quotes I highlighted when we met the Queen, here. 

<i>“A fetching knitting needle, as if those who wished her dead felt they needed to mock her for being a woman. It still irked Morrigan to think about. Especially since she had no idea how to knit in the first place.” </i> Ah, yes. Only weak women knit. 

<i>”The misogynists and slavers were aligning, and it wouldn’t be long before they collapsed upon her.”</i> - I’m mostly including this one, because it is insane to me to equate being sexist with owning literal human beings. 
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Now, I’d be willing to continue this book and give it more of a chance - especially if some sensitivity readers are added to hopefully curb some of the (hopefully) unintentional racism throughout. I don’t think I’ll have time to come back to this book, to see how it ends or how I feel about it, however, since it was only available through the Netgalley app and not on my Kindle, so I may have to simply end my reading where I did. Despite my harsh review, I do think this book has a lot of potential, and that it could have come together in a very coherent and beautiful way that I just simply haven’t gotten to yet since I DNF’d it. There were quite a few parts I did enjoy reading, but unfortunately the rest of it was soured by my issues I wrote about above. I feel a bit bad about how harsh my review currently is, but like I stated before I didn’t want anyone else being caught off guard by the potential racism present from the first few pages, like it did to me. 

Thank you to Netgalley and Victory Editing for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.

* I'd like to add that I was under the impression that this was an indie/small author, based on how I received this from Netgalley, the writing itself, as well as the author and book descriptions. I have since learned that this isn't true, but this belief did severely lighten my criticism within this book, as I was under the impression it was simply one person who may not have realized how harmful the ideas she had written were, and wanted to leave space open for it being addressed and corrected properly.
Also, when I had written my review, not a single other review mentioned the racism present in this book, and myself being white, I was worried that I was somehow imagining the harmful messages in this book or being overly sensitive, and was wary about overstepping in some way. Knowing what I know now, however, I absolutely would have been harsher in my criticism of the racist worldbuilding and would have not let multiple positive reviews to have me gaslight myself into not believing what I was reading in front of me. 
I'm leaving my review as I originally wrote it, but I did want to include some context for how softly I tried to critique this book, as well as addressing that I had not done my proper research on this author before (incorrectly) assuming it was an indie/small/debut author. 

 

I’d like to begin with the warning that I would not classify this book to be under dark academia, nor slow-burn enemies to lovers. Yes, our main character spends a great deal of time within a school-like setting, but it is not dark academia - in fact, a good portion of this book is barely focused on the academia portion at all. Instead, we spend a great deal of time with our main character trying to decide between her morals and her family, with the work she is doing taking a much-more backseat to the story. As well, her romantic lead and her fairly quickly move to involving themselves with one another, and the closest we get to ‘enemies’ is them having different backgrounds and occasionally disagreeing with them. They are never actually enemies, and the only way I could see this as being “slow-burn” is if you include the fact that they don’t have sex and barely kiss within this novel, which is not what that word means. I feel like this description might have been written by someone who has not read this book, so I would recommend looking elsewhere if that is the only thing about this book that caught your interest as you will be sorely disappointed. 

I have not read Fourth Wing, so I can’t speak on any comparisons people have made with that book and this one. I have, however, read Babel and can say I can see where the comparisons come from, but I would say that Babel focuses much more on the actual language/magic learning in the academic setting, while this one has it much more as a background activity to the rest of the novel. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as I found some of the focus on the language in Babel to bog me down a bit, but I do think this book would have benefited from focusing more on the main character being a polyglot - in both human and dragon languages. We are only given a few words in this book that aren’t in English, even during sections where she is not speaking in English, and at times I found it difficult to pick up what language she was speaking until the text explicitly states it. Considering she only speaks to her mother in Bulgarian, and typically switches languages in the middle when speaking with dragons, I think having a bit more focus - and possibly a few words/language learned - would have benefited this story. As it is, there is no difference between this main character being a polyglot and someone who only speaks one language. The closest we get to Robin Swift’s dilemma in Babel about what language he thinks/breathes in, which one is his “first” and “second” language - is at the very beginning where she wakes up thinking of a word in a dragon language that she can’t immediately translate. Otherwise she seems to have no issues speaking over 6 languages and never flubs her words, or mixes up words from the wrong language, which I found to be a bit unrealistic. 

It also takes Vivian significantly longer than Robin Swift in Babel to actually choose her morals (about 70% into the book), and yet somehow she was able to make friends and acquaintances have faith in her and trust her with secrets that could get them executed. Her main romantic lead even states that he had faith in her the entire time, despite her telling him over and over again that she would choose her family over the rest of the country. Every single time you thought Vivian was going to (finally) make a decision on who to choose, she’d waffle about it and then choose both and neither at the same time. It got tedious after a while, and I’ll be honest I was almost hoping she’d decide to betray everyone around her to get what she wanted as it would have at least made her character more interesting. Instead, she is allowed to constantly make bad decisions that hurt those around her, but is then forgiven for them anyway.

For instance, in the past Vivian had done something that had ruined her former friends life - but when it comes out, it doesn’t take that friend too long to forgive her actions. It also annoyed me that Vivian’s apology kind of felt like she tried to guilt Sophie into forgiving her, by constantly going, “It’s okay if you don’t forgive me, I wouldn't either.” But then she ruins it by finishing with saying that she’d find a way to forgive herself for those actions - apologizing but then telling that person that you’d forgive yourself for hurting them? Surprised Sophie didn't deck you for that one, girl. 

 

Finally, I felt like this book went a bit too far with the implication that every dragon from Bulgaria was a human-hunting evil monster, despite the fact that the main dragon character was Bulgarian and had severe guilt over her actions in the past. Not to mention that we find out that a lot of those previous evil actions were actually orchestrated by a human government who used the feelings of betrayal of those dragons to manipulate them into doing such violence. It doesn’t absolve it, but it does make it seem a bit suspicious that even after finding this out, our main character still sees Bulgarian dragons as untrustworthy. Vivian even explicitly states that, “Bulgarian dragons don’t ally with humans,” despite working with one this entire time. 

Overall, I did feel like this book was a strong debut and did fairly well with the issues brought up in this novel, and I am interested in seeing what comes next. If you like political intrigue, betrayals and secret identities, and dragons (although, much less involved than you’d expect given the title), I would recommend picking up this book and seeing for yourself. 

 

Combining the isolation from any outside help with a deadly biological threat that infiltrates an Antarctic research base  - Symbiote remains grounded in reality as chaos threatens to take over. This book felt like a fantastic combination of a zombie and survival thriller, where every step the main characters take to learn more about the microbe - it is also learning about them, as well. 

One thing I really loved about this book was how realistic the biological threat present in this book felt. Even as the body count began to stack up and the chaos was building - everything felt like it could be happening right now, and no one not at the bottom of the world would even know about it. I also loved the surprise with how the politics of the world, and the war currently going on, was incorporated into this story, as up until a certain point I wasn’t certain the relevance of the specific timeline. However, with the current political climate this book felt almost too realistic, at times.

I also really liked how this book took the typical bones of the typical zombie virus and developed it into its own story as the novel progressed. The microbe present in this book evolved and developed in ways I never anticipated, and I really loved the changes that occurred from the start to the ending of this book. It seemed that once the main characters got a handle on how to survive and eliminate the threat, it would change in a new way to still outmaneuver them. I really liked how at no point was I certain who, or how, anyone would survive to the end of this novel. 

Also, this book ends with such a bang! This ending could be perfect just on its own to read this book as a standalone - but it also lends itself for a sequel to continue the story. And I was so excited that the author’s note promised more to see how everything develops after the chaos of this book. I’ll absolutely be wanting to read the next installment to see what happens next.

The only thing I struggled with during this book was some of the technical names, naming conventions, and buildings and their locations. While my copy did include a brief glossary of characters and their titles, as well as the abbreviations that were used throughout this book, I do think it would benefit with a small map (nothing fancy) of the buildings and their locations to allow the reader to more easily picture and track the movements of the characters throughout the novel. 

If you like zombie thrillers, Antarctic/Arctic horror, and authors like Darcy Coates and SA Barnes, I would highly recommend picking up this novel to read for yourself With no true heroes or villains, only people desperate to survive a chaos they never expected when they signed up to work at the bottom of the world - Symbiote is a strangely realistic tale of survival against all costs, even when the odds are stacked against you. 

 

I really wish I liked this book more than I did, and to be fair - the parts I did enjoy I had fun with! - but the other issues just took me so far out of the book that overall the enjoyment was tainted. 

Now, I want to be clear. I in no way believe or want to imply that victims of assault cannot see themselves in romance novels, or that they don’t deserve to see themselves finding love and happiness in them. I’ve read romance books where the main character had been assaulted and didn’t end the book feeling as off about it as I did in this one. (The Ice Planet Barbarians book focusing on Tiffany I think does this fairly well in both addressing her trauma and having the physical relationship move in a realistic - and sexy - way.) So, believe me when I say my issues don’t stem from a main character having a specific trauma.

I think the biggest issue with this book is the dramatic tone shifting between Tess’ trauma after her assault - and the schloppy romance “spending days in bed having sex” plots. Having both be directly next to one another feels wrong, and there is a specific scene where Tess relates - in explicit detail - her trauma, and then immediately after her and the guy she’s with have marathon sex where, it’s explicitly stated, she doesn’t have any issues or triggers to avoid. And this book is filled with these wild tone shifts, where it can’t figure out a happy-medium between fun romcom lightheadedness and the seriousness of the assault, and the end result leaves the reader feeling overall uncomfortable even in lighthearted scenes. 

Also, I think the scenes where Tess is dealing with her trauma kind of verge from storytelling and flowing in a plot, to “character says the best and most correct thing” here, and in many ways it felt less like a conversation happening and more like “this is a good character because they are saying the correct thing, regardless if this is how a conversation between people works,” type of deal. It wasn’t the biggest issue I had, but it was very noticeable during the conversation where Tess gets with her love interest. He says something to make her think she can’t trust him, and then he barely says anything to get her to trust him, and suddenly she does? And then they’re having marathon sex with no issues? (Also, the sex scene itself was underwhelming, which is fine but I did find it odd that the male love interest has a whole internal monologue about not wanting Tess to think she has to force herself to come, but when she does being like “I’m so happy she trusts me like this.” I will admit to being like, “Huh?” during this part.)

I also felt some of the descriptions to be odd, with similar ones being used for loved interests as well as men who we think may attempt to assault Tess. 

These quotes are taken from a digital ARC copy, and may not be in the final product. I had only highlighted them in my copy because the first description made me a bit uncomfortable, which was only confirmed when the second description happened and I was like “Wait, wasn’t this almost exact thing said about a love interest?”

“...with every aspect of this hulking brute of a man. He was easily a foot taller than she was, thick with muscle…” - a scene describing a sexy romp within the world of the books this novel is about.

“He was big - like, linebacker big…” - a scene of a man trapping Tess in a hallway and potentially wanting to force himself on her. 

Finally, this doesn’t really mean anything, but the brief interludes of the characters and scenes within the books this novel is about really took me out of the story. The writing style in these books was very Harlequin-style, trashy romance and every scene we were forced to read of this world just made me wonder why on earth these books would be popular. The plots and storylines shown, as well as the writing, in these “books” made the popularity of these books make no sense to me, and I could not understand how the main character not only read all 3 books but regularly re-read them for enjoyment. 

Overall, I did enjoy this book and found the plot and romances to be fun and typical within a romance novel - nothing too surprising in one way or the other - and didn’t have an issue with any of it. However, the constant tonal shifts between Tess falling into bed with her love interest for days on end, and then having a complete 180 while she deals with her trauma and it becomes very serious, severely limited the enjoyment I felt while reading. The overall feeling was a kind of lukewarm, mildly uncomfortable mix that made the romance feel weak, and also made it hard to simply accept some of the sillier plot going on in the background. It’s not that this author didn’t handle the assault and trauma with care, but that it felt like an entirely separate book that was simply mashed together, rather than a cohesive story. Also, this is entirely just me, but if I wasn’t already going to give this 3 stars because of the overall mess of the book, I would have had to seriously consider knocking off a star <i>anyway</i> because apparently one character is named for a stupid Taylor Swift reference, and I’d like to go one single time reading an urban fantasy romance without having to deal with a stupid and unnecessary Swift reference. For once. 

 

A fun and entertaining installment in the Murder and Magic series, this book can be enjoyed both as a standalone, as well as for anyone hoping for more of this world. While I’ll admit to being a bit disappointed that this book doesn’t focus on Hetty and Benjy like the earlier books in this series, Velma quickly grabbed my attention and I was soon on board with how her adventures would stack up instead. I also loved being able to see some of the characters we had known and loved in the other two books, as well as seeing how the family had grown since we had last been in this world. 

While I kind of thought this book had a slower start, once the story kicked off I was invested until the last page. Once Velma and Dillon began their investigation together - snarking at each other the entire time - I was having a blast. The investigation is in-depth and intricate, and up until the pieces started to come together I had no idea how everything would fit. The worldbuilding in these books is also fascinating, as this book expands upon how the 1920-1930s looks with the magical alternate universe - but in a very grounded way to where everything feels realistic and possible. 

One thing I always really appreciate with Nicole Glover’s writing is how well the romances are done in her books. I will admit, I was a bit hesitant once I learned that this would be a more of an enemies-to-lovers type of deal, since I find the trope tedious if poorly done. However, I was pleasantly surprised to love every bit of conversation as well as the entire dynamic between Velma and Dillon, and that they felt natural and real as they slowly became closer. While different from how Hetty and Benjy slowly realized they simply just “fit” together, a lot of how naturally the two fit together was the same. I realize some others might prefer heart-pounding and “love at first sight” or much more dramatic romances, but that’s never been something I’ve been able to relate to and I much prefer the natural progression done within these novels. 

I really enjoyed this book, and I think it could easily be enjoyed by anyone just getting into the world created by Nicole Glover. If you haven’t read The Conductors I highly recommend it, and if you’ve read her previous duology I highly recommend getting back into that world with The Improvisers. Full of magic, twists, betrayals, murder and just a dash of romance - this book is a great escape into the magical historical fiction fantasy world of Nicole Glover. 

 

With the rise of social media, streaming, and living one’s life online - the internet has been a place sorely lacking in good horror content focused solely on that. There’s been a few decent games and ARG’s I can think of that focus on the internet as the birthplace of the horror (the game Simulacra comes to mind), but as a whole I find it difficult to find many ventures into this genre to be both believable and entertaining. 

Deadstream, in my opinion, has a wonderful start to how the horror begins - slowly, and with increasing believability. With our main character recovering from the death of her friend after a car crash, she’s become agoraphobic and only gets her socialization online - typically through either streaming herself, or watching others stream. As someone who watches a lot of streamers, and has for a few years, I found these parts of the novel to be realistic and believable - the live chat, the reactions, the streamers content and speaking voice - all of which, made it remarkably easy for me to imagine I was also watching this stream and was involved in the chat. 

However, I will admit that a majority of my 4 star rating has come more from this beginning than how this book ended, as once the “reveal” of what exactly was happening was done I was less invested and found the entire thing to (somehow) become less believable. While the idea of something that haunted streamers and sent them catatonic was an interesting take, I think - once we (as the main character) knew the cause, it was suddenly less frightening or interesting. Not to spoil anything, but there was one scene with a character in a car that felt absolutely ridiculous and by that point I was just reading to finish the book, to be completely honest. 

While I understood our main character’s anxiety, I didn’t personally think that there was a serious need to have the background of her dead friend being the cause of her agoraphobia - at times it felt out of place, and since this aspect is never fully explored I didn’t think it was necessary. There are many reasons a person may become, or already is, agoraphobic, and I think any could have been explored with our main character and nothing would have changed. The parts in this book that focused on this section of our main character’s past felt less explored or thought out than the rest of the book, and it personally felt to me like a last-minute addition to give a “reason” for her behavior. 

I also kind of found the ending to have, while an interesting take on the entire thing, to have felt a bit too cheesy and not for me. However, considering the reasoning for the entire paranormal stream activity in the first place, it does - in a way - fit, but it personally took me out of the story by the time I reached it.

However - as a whole, I found this book to be a fun exploration of horror set in a modern digital age, with the focus being on streaming and the many doors that can - unintentionally - open, both to those streaming and those watching. While I think that this book had a strong start and may have missed the mark near the end, I do recommend it if you were looking for some fast-paced campy modern digital horror, as the premise was extremely well done and (at least for the parts focusing in the streaming) it never cut my immersion. 

 

I, uh. Think maybe if I was ex-Catholic all the repetitive religious unlearning of dogma would have resonated more, but unfortunately I was raised Protestant and am currently an atheist and I don't have any of that good old Catholic guilt. The horror is honestly such a background in this book that removing it entirely would not have changed a thing. 

I think, based on Maeve Fly and the description, I was hoping for a main character more on par with Maeve - someone whose transformation is entirely new and different and very in charge of her own destiny. As it is, in my opinion, the main character is kind of stagnant the entire novel, and she finishes the book with basically the same mental narrative and beliefs as she started it. Like, okay, yes, she decides not to be religious anymore - but the entire book, including the end, involves her relating everything to God and demons and other religious figures. 

Also, so much of this book is based on step-by-step unlearning religious dogma in such a "Baby's First Look Into Not Being Catholic" that it almost felt insulting (and certainly boring) to read through. I didn't care. The main character was so flat and wooden that she didn't make me care. In many ways, it felt like a checklist of "Have her read/think something controversial" followed immediately by her reverting to following her teachings growing up, and THAT followed immediately by "but wait! what if?" as she wishy-washy chooses both options. And in the meantime, nothing of note is happening. 

I understand how much of this book focused on not feeling shame for sexual exploration - especially as women - but so much of it falls apart when 

A) nothing can actually be explored in a safe way considering the rape virus going on, forcing every conversation of sexual arousal to also have an underlying "are you even actually feeling that or are you infected?" which CAN'T be good for the "sexual deviation is demons possessing you" when that's actually happening, except instead of demons, it's a virus. 

B) the inappropriate attraction between a girl who turns 17 during the events of the novel and a fully adult man in his 20s. Her being attracted to him is whatever, but why is him having feelings of attraction and arousal towards her never addressed properly? Like, I'm sorry, but that absolutely should be repressed and felt guilty about, and I'm not even Catholic I'm just not attracted to teenagers. 

C) SPOILER FOR THIS ONE - the main character never actually acts on these feelings of attraction. We just get a lot of (boring) flowy language about her being attracted to people, and then by the end she's like "I've transformed into someone in charge of her own sexuality 😊" when. Nothing has actually happened. 

So much of the horror of a virus that makes people quite literally rape others is so washed out that it almost felt fetishized as a concept - we get many descriptions of people being assaulted, but (somehow 🙄) it never fully affects our main character. One scene near the beginning I remember because it rubbed me the wrong way involved a man assaulting another man, being beaten to near death, breaking into the main character's car, but then sensing and attacking some random woman who got out of her car to see what was going on - and this being only described as "she screamed for a long while." It just? Felt superfluous. 

The way the world so quickly ended, and the response of the religious cult that popped up, seemed like it just copy-pasted a zombie film and didn't bother with worldbuilding or making things make sense. I think maybe the virus making people sexually assault others and making them extra strong and violent was a hard sell - especially since it's so barely explored, and even when it is, it doesn't feel realistic. 

This isn't a real criticism, but maybe if I knew the locations being described I'd have enjoyed them more, but as it is I started skimming when I got to the house of weird music and religious figures where the main character runs around in because everything was so coated in weird religious descriptions in a place that sounds made up that my eyes glossed over during those parts. 

None of the characters made me care about them. The main character is a wooden caricature that just has things happen to her, none of the other characters she meets meant anything to me - and I was waiting for half of them to be infected (or the main character herself to be), that when they weren't made me question them as people. 

Maybe it's because I'm aroace, but all of the "romances" were nothing, went nowhere, and were pointless. (they weren't even romances, the entire thing was "Oh no, my 'secret place' feels warm - am I infected? Wait, no, I decided this was Normal and I'm going to embrace it on someone completely inappropriate for me!") The only reason the main character ends up with who she does is because they survived together - legitimately if anyone else had survived with her I don't think the ending would have changed. 

Also! The one romantic interest was literally introduced as being friends with skeevy boys who were harassing her for being "innocent" and a "virgin" and this is never brought up as something to be alarmed about? Even when she learns that he himself speculated that she was a virgin, it's never seen as a negative. The entire time, I was waiting for a heel-turn of him getting close to her just to have sex with her and leave her. Because those are the kinds of boys he's hanging out with! Why is he, then, portrayed as someone healthy who liked her long before the outbreak, when they'd barely spoken any words together - and the entire time they do it's when she's realized her clothes/bra are too tight and her clothes are soaked through and almost see-through (leading credence to him only being interested in sex with her) but once they reunite all his slightly-red flag behavior is glossed entirely over?

Basically all the deaths that happened around the main character were pointless. There is one scene of an attack that is almost beat for beat identical to the previous attack, so much so that I was wondering why we were just repeating the same thing over again if only to extend the word count. 

As a whole, this book wasn't Bad but it wasn't what I expected - the only reason this book is horror is because of the random inclusion of rape, assault, and murder and nothing else. This would better be classified under something about unlearning toxic religious upbringing, but this is done in such a surface level way that I don't really think it could be enjoyed from that aspect either. I really wished I liked this book more, as I was so excited for it, but unfortunately it was not for me.

 

With a premise that hooked me from the start, Whiteout is an Antarctic survival thriller set during the end of the world, that makes you question how much you’d be willing to fight to survive even in the most dire of circumstances. 

I love thriller and horror set in the cold barren wastes of the Antarctic, since it makes every little thing that happens much more deadly and serious. In most survival scenarios, the main protagonist could, in theory, leave to go somewhere else. Not so, when doing so will almost guarantee their death within a few hours in subzero weather. This raises all the stakes when things go wrong, since our main character has to determine how to survive both her current circumstances - as well as the unforgiving polar night. 

The one thing that didn’t quite work for me in this book was the family drama that was interspersed throughout the book, as I personally couldn't care less about the potential fracturing of our main character’s marriage or her missing her daughter. While this is important for the motivations of our main character, I just am not someone who cares about family drama in novels, and so when these chapters were spread throughout I will admit to only half-paying attention to them. I don’t think the book would have been any different had the main character and her husband not had some issues, as in both scenarios she’s mourning their potential death during a potential nuclear war. 

However, the main overall intensity and pace of this book kept me interested until the last page, and there were quite a few twists that I did see coming - and one I only realized before the last page during its reveal. If you were looking for a quick survival thriller, with a main character who does everything she can to survive despite both the circumstances and the bleak reality she’s found herself in, I would recommend picking up this book.