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recreationalhobbyist's review against another edition
3.0
The story begins in 2007 when Finn Gettler kayaks to the abandoned North Brother Island in New York’s East River. North Brother Island has been abandoned for over 40 years & is now a protected heron nesting habitat. The island is home to the ruins of Riverside Hospital which once housed patients with some of the most infectious diseases & later a home for juveniles with drug addictions. Finn is the descendant of a family of microbiologists that once ran the hospital & he has uncovered some unsettling information about his family legacy. A legacy that perhaps his father & brother are continuing. Finn hopes he can find answers on the island.
Finn encounters a heavily mutilated & scarred young woman bathing in one of the ruins on the island. Of course, Finn gets caught & we are introduced to the young woman, Cora. Cora immediately recognizes Finn as “one of the Gettlers” and tells him to get off her island. Naturally, this intrigues Finn even more & he becomes more determined to learn more about Cora & his family’s history.
Through flashbacks & flash-forwards, the story of Cora, the Gettler doctors in charge of Riverside Hospital, the island’s inhabitants & a mysterious island are woven to tell a horrific tale of human experimentation. Cora has been infected with several highly contagious diseases at the hands of the Gettler men over the years in an effort to find a miracle cure for some of the deadliest diseases.
What I Liked: The story seems to be very well researched from both the historical aspect to the epidemiology & medical aspect. Cora’s story is frustrating & heartbreaking. I found myself engrossed in the story of her time on the island. I have never heard of North Brother Island or the hospital designed to quarantine the most infectious patients, including Typhoid Mary. The novel resonates even more right now as the intent of the Gettlers is to find the miracle cure to prevent another pandemic from happening & the unethical lengths they go to.
What I Didn’t: The storytelling felt a bit clunky at times. The flashbacks & flashforwards sometimes didn’t transition as seamlessly as they did in other parts. The chapters are based on the timeline & kind of weird. It starts in July 2007. The next chapter is “two weeks later” also in July 2007. Then we go back to February 1902. Then 20 months later. And sometimes it’s a mere few hours later. The dialogue between some characters felt forced & was just plain awkward at times.
The Vines is a slow burn & a fascinating read. It is a great debut novel & I look forward to reading the next book in the series.
*I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions included herein are my own.*
For more of my reviews, check out my blog.
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Finn encounters a heavily mutilated & scarred young woman bathing in one of the ruins on the island. Of course, Finn gets caught & we are introduced to the young woman, Cora. Cora immediately recognizes Finn as “one of the Gettlers” and tells him to get off her island. Naturally, this intrigues Finn even more & he becomes more determined to learn more about Cora & his family’s history.
Through flashbacks & flash-forwards, the story of Cora, the Gettler doctors in charge of Riverside Hospital, the island’s inhabitants & a mysterious island are woven to tell a horrific tale of human experimentation. Cora has been infected with several highly contagious diseases at the hands of the Gettler men over the years in an effort to find a miracle cure for some of the deadliest diseases.
What I Liked: The story seems to be very well researched from both the historical aspect to the epidemiology & medical aspect. Cora’s story is frustrating & heartbreaking. I found myself engrossed in the story of her time on the island. I have never heard of North Brother Island or the hospital designed to quarantine the most infectious patients, including Typhoid Mary. The novel resonates even more right now as the intent of the Gettlers is to find the miracle cure to prevent another pandemic from happening & the unethical lengths they go to.
What I Didn’t: The storytelling felt a bit clunky at times. The flashbacks & flashforwards sometimes didn’t transition as seamlessly as they did in other parts. The chapters are based on the timeline & kind of weird. It starts in July 2007. The next chapter is “two weeks later” also in July 2007. Then we go back to February 1902. Then 20 months later. And sometimes it’s a mere few hours later. The dialogue between some characters felt forced & was just plain awkward at times.
The Vines is a slow burn & a fascinating read. It is a great debut novel & I look forward to reading the next book in the series.
*I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions included herein are my own.*
For more of my reviews, check out my blog.
stephaniejnl's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
ambsmith10's review against another edition
3.0
Not a bad story, until you get so far and realize nothing will be resolved because there is sequel!!! Ugh.
niksasali's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
hal2499's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
organchordsandlightning's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
A really interesting premise bogged down by details. I think there's really something to the concept of Cora, a woman inflicted with many diseases that cannot leave the island, and I was far more interested in her section of the book - at first, before it simply became chapter after chapter of the same kinds of medical torture. I also found the modern sections not particularly compelling at all - and a little troubling, in some aspects. For all the talk about what was done to Cora, the book really does seem to believe at points that the male bloodline of the Gettler family is 'cursed' into being evil scientists.
emms_across_formats's review against another edition
2.0
2.5 ⭐️
You can tell that this is a well researched book that the author poured their heart and soul into.
I seriously struggled to stay engaged with the story. For a fairly short book, it felt like it went on forever only to then end on a cliffhanger. Had I known this wasn’t a stand alone, I would’ve dnf’ed before the halfway mark. I won’t continue the series as I barely made it through the book.
You can tell that this is a well researched book that the author poured their heart and soul into.
I seriously struggled to stay engaged with the story. For a fairly short book, it felt like it went on forever only to then end on a cliffhanger. Had I known this wasn’t a stand alone, I would’ve dnf’ed before the halfway mark. I won’t continue the series as I barely made it through the book.
sharesb's review against another edition
3.0
The synopsis of this book sounded promising and I had really hoped to like it but it was just “okay”
The storyline flipped back and forth from all sorts of time eras which I found hard to keep up with. I understood the book was going to be one you needed to activate your imagination around but I just couldn’t be sold on it.
Basically Cora lives on an island by herself and is visited one day by Finn who has more or less discovered family secrets. But in order for anyone to visit Cora you have to have a hazmat suit and pray you don’t breathe the same air. It’s a family affair full of horrific body experiments going back over a hundred years. It’s a tragic story reading everything Cora has gone through but very hard ( for ME) to wrap my head around the whole storyline to make sense.
The ending was annoying. Total cliffhanger but I have no desire to read the follow up to it. Not my fave read.
Ending with a fast fact: This was the first book I’ve read which incorporates the coronavirus.
The storyline flipped back and forth from all sorts of time eras which I found hard to keep up with. I understood the book was going to be one you needed to activate your imagination around but I just couldn’t be sold on it.
Basically Cora lives on an island by herself and is visited one day by Finn who has more or less discovered family secrets. But in order for anyone to visit Cora you have to have a hazmat suit and pray you don’t breathe the same air. It’s a family affair full of horrific body experiments going back over a hundred years. It’s a tragic story reading everything Cora has gone through but very hard ( for ME) to wrap my head around the whole storyline to make sense.
The ending was annoying. Total cliffhanger but I have no desire to read the follow up to it. Not my fave read.
Ending with a fast fact: This was the first book I’ve read which incorporates the coronavirus.
im211's review against another edition
2.0
DNF-ED.
An interesting concept has the haunted hospital and unethical medical treatment elements, which at first I'd found very intriguing since I'd always loved looking up histories of abandoned hospitals. However, the writing style and the way the story progressed felt very clipped and it read like a monologue from different points of view. It's probably just not a book or topic that's up my alley,
An interesting concept has the haunted hospital and unethical medical treatment elements, which at first I'd found very intriguing since I'd always loved looking up histories of abandoned hospitals. However, the writing style and the way the story progressed felt very clipped and it read like a monologue from different points of view. It's probably just not a book or topic that's up my alley,