The R.C Bray audio of this might be the best audiobook I've ever listened to. Review to come when I'm done CRYING in the BREAKROOM

Character - 7
Atmosphere - 8
Writing - 7
Plot - 8
Intrigue - 8
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 8

Rating: 7.57 / 4 stars.

Character - 8
Atmosphere - 6
Writing - 7
Plot - 6
Intrigue - 8
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 8

Rating: 7.14 / 4 stars

cawpile to come

this slapped as much as it did in 2006

cawpile to come

i love lem

cawpile to come

Character - 5
Atmosphere - 6
Writing - 5
Plot - 6
Intrigue - 5
Logic - 5
Enjoyment - 6

Rating: 5.43 / 3 stars

say vibes one more time i stg

CAWPILE rated on reread, 2022:

Character - 9
Atmosphere - 8
Writing - 8
Plot - 9
Intrigue - 8
Logic - 6
Enjoyment - 8

Rating: 8.00 / 4 stars

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Full review available on my blog July 8th: https://inkandplasma.com/2021/07/08/what-we-devour/

Thanks to Sourcebooks Fire for the eARC of this book. It has not affected my honest review.

Content Warnings: violence, gore, death and murder, self-harm (as part of magic system, graphic), harming others (as part of magic system, graphic), classism, aphobia, worker abuse, cannibalism (mentions only).

I freaking adored this book, but cramming it into 336 pages did it a disservice. I am going to reread the finished copy when it’s out for two reasons: to see if it’s improved pacing-wise from the eARC and because I’m simping hard for Lorena/Alistair. The intimacy between them? Oof. Fundamentally my only problem with this book is that it deserved to be longer. If The Thing that happens around 50% of this book had been the end of book 1, and the second half had been its sequel? This would be my perfect duology. It just felt like everything happened in such a rush and I wanted to linger over it. It made for a confusing start to the book, because we hustled at such a rapid pace that I didn’t understand what was going on until about 30% in.

Onto what I loved, aka 98% of this book! Lorena being both asexual and blisteringly sexy is exactly the kind of ace rep my aroace lesbian self needs. Between What We Devour and Belle Révolte, Linsey Miller is absolutely killing it with ace rep. Both books have made me weepy in their protagonists descriptions of their asexuality. Lorena’s relationship with Julian was (unfortunately) relatably conflicted while her hate-to-trust-to-hate-to-love thing with Alistair? Perfection. The intimacy between them was so perfect that it left me breathless, and every touch between them had my heart pounding. If you like your bad boys with a history of unforgivable crimes and a desperate desire to Be Better, then Alistair Wyrslaine will steal your heart too. The way that Lorena and Alistair work together and against each other is so good and the cunning protagonist against the powerful morally grey character will never not be my jam.

The magic system in this book, once I understood it, is massively interesting. I love the idea of characters being able to make requests, almost like prayers, in exchange for sacrifices and the option of tangible (e.g. blood) versus intangible (e.g. a memory) sacrifices made for a really interesting dynamic. Lorena has the potentially to be ridiculously powerful, but has to weigh each action against her own willingness to sacrifice. It builds and builds into a hell of a climax, and by the time this book ends, everyone has been forced to do terrible, terrible things. I love it. There is so much backstabbing and betrayal in this book. Everything is terrible a lot of the time, and I loved that I could never guess where the next hit would come from. It meant I spent half my time reading holding my breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Full review on my blog, 18th July 2022: https://inkandplasma.com/2022/07/18/the-house-across-the-lake/

Character - 6
Atmosphere - 7
Writing - 6
Plot - 6
Intrigue - 7
Logic - 6
Enjoyment - 7

Rating: 6.43 / 3 stars
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Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for the eARC of this book. It has not affected my honest review.

Another day another Riley Sager novel that I desperately wanted to love slightly more than I did. This wasn’t bad by any means, but I did find the ending ultimately overwhelming after a fairly intense build-up throughout the first half of the book. I didn’t dislike it, but I do feel like I’m still chasing the high of my first Sager book.

I’ll start with the good stuff. The writing is still good, and the book is decently paced. There are before and after sections and the after sections were well-spaced out. They kept me curious without spoiling the narrative arc of the before sections. The pace picked up as the book went on and really fit the heart-pounding feeling of watching a horror movie as you get closer to the end. I read most of it in one sitting, and it was as easy to read as ever. The hints scattered throughout built intrigue and made me want to know more, even as I wildly theorised. I liked the premise a lot, but that leads me to my main points of frustration – the execution.

I don’t mind a good trope, and the alcoholic sees something across the street (or across the lake) and nobody believes her is a decent trope when done well. Unfortunately, Riley Sager doesn’t write Casey in a particularly convincing way. It makes her fall flat in several ways, and undermined what could have been some really wow-ing plot twists. The romance was aggressively shoe-horned in. It didn’t really make any sense, and I absolutely refuse to be convinced that he’s a good person. Not happening! No way!

The depiction of Casey’s alcoholism really irritated me. In some scenes she was shaking and desperate for a drink, and in others she went a whole day before ‘remembering’ she hadn’t had a drink. There was no kind of withdrawal, even though we were told she was actively and explicitly drinking daily. Equally in one scene she had a few drinks and was passed out cold, and in another scene, she had twice as many and rowed full pelt across a lake. I’ve never experienced alcoholism, but it didn’t feel authentic to me, just that it was being used as a plot device.

I spent a week after I finished HOME AFTER DARK fuming that I wanted a paranormal ending to that novel. And after reading THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE, I’d have preferred a non-paranormal ending. I find myself increasingly frustrated as Riley Sager builds up atmosphere and twists pretty well but the endings are consistently underwhelming. I wanted to see something new from him but, I guess not like this. At this point I think that this is very much a me problem, and Riley Sager’s books aren’t for me. Time to put my hands up and admit it.

Character - 9
Atmosphere - 8
Writing - 8
Plot - 7
Intrigue - 7
Logic - 6
Enjoyment -8

Rating: 7.57 / 4 stars