Bought it when I thought it might be less problematic and more well written than the show was but, if anything, it leans into other stuff so much I didn’t even want to read beyond the first couple issues.

A fun premise executed well. Some twits and turns and I like the ways it plays into and subverts the mystery locked room genre. Certainly takes an opportunity to say something and not just reveal the mystery, which makes it far more satisfying and interesting, imo.

The only issue I had was when things are revealed about the protagonist they felt a bit glossed over or like plot points designed solely to fit into a puzzle. I wish that area had been expounded on, because they’re fairly important in characterizing both of the main characters, yet they aren’t really a part of the story being told?

It’s... a bit strange, though it’s explained by the way in which the characters must solve the mystery. Yet it’s almost a counterbalance to the point of it, since we never learn who they really are by the very nature of the structure and premise of the novel. I wonder if it’s reserved for a second book?

This felt like all of the tropes of the field reiterated and underlined to me. Complete with an autistic kid and leaving tokens and mommy issues. Had the authorial voice been more compelling I might have gone on but I just felt like it was run-of-the-mill when it had been seriously overhyped to me. So I DNF’d it at 40%; a generous way into the book to see if I’d get hooked, but I never did.

The elements of Alabama itself, and southern gothic, in general, are well realized here. But Max as an onboarding foreign student from Germany is not. And the magical realism aspect to him in relation to his queerness is interesting but feels tacked on or fumbled every now and then.

It’s a metaphor I am theoretically into, and the exploration of it could be interesting, but I felt like things were put into it to be shocking or interesting, while not really interrogating the southern gothic tropes or the larger, thematic meaning of some of the more disturbing motifs and defaultism actually serve; if anything.

The prose have a nice turn of phrase quality to them and there’s potential. But, perhaps because Max, as far being from Germany, is not believable in the slightest to me—maybe this created a negative feedback loop, tainting the rest of a story that wants you to just roll with it, as being unbelievable as well.