The constant attempt to invoke gravitas and force an atmosphere that wasn't there made this story painful to read.

I had to check when this was written because the amount of inappropriate and outdated terms and ideas was off-putting.

I wanted to like it, but there's a lot about it that's really problematic, like using sexual assault as a character quirk (like seriously, WTF?!).

The characters are barely defined, and the female characters are especially horrible in how they are nothing more than every worse caricature imaginable.

I can't believe that this book is by the same author who wrote the Agatha Raisin books.

I first came across Adam Nevill after listening to a performance of his story "Hippocampus" by Kristin Holland on the Nocturnal Transmission podcast (the first story in this collection).

I was worried that my enjoyment may have had more to do with the brilliant performance and less with the story itself, however, having read this collection of stories, I now know it was due to both.

The imagery in these stories is darkly beautiful.

I definitely recommend reading this book in a dim, quiet room at night.

I did try the audiobook as read by Dennis Kleinman, but I didn't enjoy it very much. He spoke too quickly and didn't make use of silence at all. The text really needed him to linger on the imagery.

Alternative title "How many horror pop culture references can you shove into a story?"

This is a slow burn horror, and with all slow burn horrors, the climax is what makes or breaks it, and in this case, it broke it. Hard.

The end of the story makes the rest of the story not worth the time and effort. It could have been a decent slow burn story with the right ending, but it was just so anti-climatic, clichéd, and obvious that I just ended up wanting my time back.

A slow, uneventful plot with unlikeable characters and awful dialogue.

I also don't think the author spent much time actually researching thresher sharks, either.

Every second or third sentence is a poor attempt at humour, frequently so US-centric that they made no sense.

This "humour" isn't really amusing, and it distracts from the actual science being discussed. That said, I did find the first part of the book, that focuses on the more scientific aspect of bones, much more interesting than the second part of the book, which had a more social/anthropological focus.

Someone needs to tell the author that 1. Less is more, and 2. they're not as funny as they think they are.

Boring. 

So incredibly boring. 

Pretty much NOTHING HAPPENS for the majority of the book and the little bit of action in the last quarter of the book in no way makes up for how mediocre and uneventful the rest of the book is.

DO. NOT. RECOMMEND. 

This novel has it all - sexism, racism, ableism, anti-semitism...

Not to mention, it's a perfect example of why male authors shouldn't write female protagonists.

It has all the lousy stereotypes that you'd expect.

DO. NOT. RECOMMEND. 

On reading this a second time, I found myself viewing the characters in a different light, especially Julia. 

On my first reading, I found her to be haughty and stuck up, but on reading the story again, I realise she is, in fact, an honest introvert, not willing to pretend to be more than she is comfortable being.

This is a subtle ghost story with a slow pace and a sharp undercurrent of wit.

A great read that is accessible to both people with and without academic knowledge regarding plant biology.

Easy to read in one sitting or to read a chapter at a time.

I also took the opportunity to do the two free Coursera courses based on the book and presented by the author. I highly recommend checking them out.