wren_rainbow's Reviews (451)

First, I know a few people have rated this highly but I couldn’t get past how cocky the male character was. He constantly referred to women as “females” and “girls” and harped about “females” having “fake bodies” 🙄. The body shaming and slut shaming (  brief mention of sex work - pornography) irked me so badly. The female main character is propped as being “not like other girls” or shall I say she “wasn’t like all these other females”. YET men in this book can be referred to as men NOT boys or males. You can demean women but not men. I made it 60% through and couldn’t deal anymore. I can’t stand people in real life who refer to women or AFAB folks as females and refuse to tolerate and read it in a book (unless they learn a lesson on misogyny, the patriarchy, and their biases). 

Before starting this book you need to suspend logic and belief. Take the story as it goes. It was an interesting read and had no idea what to expect. This book played out as a movie in my mind and completely sucked me in ( it was rather gruesome and horrifying at some points). I didn’t feel attached to most of the characters except Benjamin who conflictingly pulled at my heart strings. I’m going to keep this book on my shelf because I’ve never read anything like it will recommend because of the morally gray character. 

Major con:  ACAB and the police work was shoddy. 

I definitely need a light and fluffy read after this book. 

This was my introduction to Jamaica Kincaid after meaning to read her work for a couple of years. This was so beautifully written and felt each emotion she was trying to make us as the reader feel. I decided to read this after seeing that it was discussing Antigua- which I have visited and loved! The island is beautiful…as a tourist. I didn’t consider the deeper notion of what it is like to be a native. This caused me to think of my role as tourist visiting any country. This is a thought provoking read. Necessary. I look forward to reading more from Jamaica Kincaid.

Stephen King  is a wonderful story teller - he can be very drawn out and descriptive which can be annoying for some but it honestly helps the imagery formed in your head. Reading his books is like watching a movie - I can clearly immerse myself in his world (for better or worse). Ben Mears was a bit of a flat character in comparison to the others around him but I can over look that. Looking gears to reading more of Mr. King’s works!

I was reading consistently until 71% through. At the point, I lost interest in the story but skimmed to see what was going on as I didn’t want to completely DNF it. 

This might be a soft DNF - I don’t feel any connection to the characters and the 4th wall breaks are throwing me off due to the randomness of when it’s used. I’ve tried to pick this book back up several times and at this point it’s feeling like homework.