simonlorden's Reviews (1.38k)

i picked this up by mistake without realizing it's middle grade, so that's on me.

kind of a disappointment. also why does everyone have the same name

I received a copy through Netgalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Karl is a fourteen-year-old boy with a drug addict single mother, who finds out that the man who lives below him is a serial killer. The man, Harris, then tries to recruit Karl as his apprentice.

For a thriller, this book was just incredibly bleak and not really thrilling. A lot of slurs, bullying, drug use, suicidal thoughts, and dead women. I can't honestly say I enjoyed anything about it, except a brief moment when it looked like Karl's mother might recover from her depression, which didn't last.

I am very bored unfortunately

I received an ARC from the publisher and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Jessie lives peacefully with her husband and her young daughter, trying to forget the years spent locked up for the murder of her best friend when she was twelve. Then a post goes viral about her daughter missing, even though she is right there in Jessie's sight. Also, whoever killed Lauren might not have stopped there...

This book sucked me in and I read it in one afternoon. It was twisty and exciting, and literally everyone in the book was suspicious. I had to keep going to see what was going to happen, and the twists kept coming.

And in the end, that's probably why I was a bit disappointed with the ending. Everyone being suspicious led to me honestly not being convinced that the real murderer was caught in the end, and I was a bit confused because I was sure that there would be another twist (or two). I'm not sure if that open ending was deliberate, or if this book just made me way too paranoid. 

Overall, I loved this book, but it's going to keep me up tonight because I just don't understand why [redacted] would be the killer when [other character] had way more motive. So I'm rating it 4 stars because I don't think that final solution had enough lead-up compared to the other suspects.

I received an ARC from the publisher and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Chloe is a ghost hunter who inherited the job - and the Egyptian ancestor family ghost - when her sister died. Helen (yes, that Helen) runs a sanctuary for mythical creatures, and she really doesn't want to trust humans again.

I loved the tension between Chloe and Helen, but the best part of this whole book was probably Ramses. He's just a great sidekick, and his familial relationship with Chloe was great to see. I also loved Helen's sanctuary, with all the different creatures, some of whom had committed evils in the past - but everyone deserves a chance for redemption.

I thought I called a big twist around one third in, and then I kept waiting for that shit to hit the fan, and... in the end, that plotline wasn't clearly resolved in this book at all, so I still don't know if I was right or not. Maybe I was completely off. Maybe not. I just want to know now!!

I received an advanced copy for review and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I would like to rename this book to SO MUCH DEATH on the Lusitania.

This book has both love drama and about a dozen kinds of political and war drama. Everyone on board has their own agenda, some of them have several, and it was interesting to find out what everyone wanted and how these intersected.

In fact, at some point the twists were almost becoming too much, and there was a long part that felt like it dragged, but then the 'finale' was full of action and excitement again. And in true mystery fashion, there is a final little twist at the end that makes you wonder again about the whole thing.

One thing that I really liked was how the lesbian love story was treated. Although it was clear that society would find the relationship scandalous, there was none of the homophobic disgust or judgment that I would have expected from a historical book, and it was honestly kind of refreshing.

Also, war is hell and governments are awful.

All in all, this was an interesting mystery, but maybe less murder mystery and more a story of the awfulness of war and the acceptable sacrifices in it.

everyone in this book is miserable. that's not even my problem though, it's just long and I'm bored.

The parts with Alfonso were interesting, but the rest was kinda shit. Sometimes literally.

cw: pedophilia, underage sex, lots of sexual content, descriptions of shitting