marik0n's reviews
521 reviews

I was really ready to give this book 5 stars, but sadly I couldn't. Ina nutshell, it is absolutely gripping until the last 3/4, but its greater flaw is not the mild ending. I think its biggest problem and the reason it isn't a bestseller is how problematic its depiction of the female characters is.

Laura, the FMC is making all the wrong decisions when it comes to men. She has an affair with her boss, who is married with three sons and 17 years her senior. Even though she understands that he is playing her she acts spasmodic and runs circles around herself going from adoring him to being fed up with him. Don't get me started on her whole relationship with her ex, it was so tiring reading all this nagging about a relationship that ended on bad terms three years ago. Don't get me started on the fact that she is almost instantly turned on by every man she talks to and she has sex with a practical stranger moments after having a panic attack. No real woman would act this way and that really takes away a big part of the quality of the book for me.

Laura (and all the other female characters) feels like caricatures of women written by a man. All this internalised misogyny, self hate and inferiority complex can be tiring and kind of annoying to be honest. This was a major turn off for me. I strongly believe that if the female characters were more wholesome and multileveled this book would be much more popular.

The other four females present in this book -three contestants and the producer- are two dimension stereotypes of what men want to present women as. The older women who is trying to stay young and relevant for the mazle gaze, her younger version, the proud and the evil master mind who isn't a mastermind after all.

One thing I really enjoyed was the constant foreshadowing through the conversations between the producer and the detective. That really kept me hooked and I think that the whole idea was genius.


The ending was anticlimactic and overall kind of disappointing. However, I'm giving this book 2.25 stars because it mostly gave what it promised and it was indeed a page turner.

I found the concept of the book really interesting and I was highly optimistic for it. For the most part, I was correct. The action starts very early on and this blend of a classic slasher paired with social media influences was just a chef's kiss.

The reason this isn't a five star read is that the first death is a person of minority and I find it kind of silly to still do that in 2024. It makes a little bit of sense as the order is explained, but still, it knocked it down a little bit for me.

The ending wasn't totally conviencing and surely there were some logical jumps expected from the reader but I didn't mind it because overall it was really engaging, it kept me guessing until the very end and I had a good time.

This is a spoiler-free review.

Let me start by saying that this book's synopsis is absolutely misleading. The 'action' part of the book is just the last 50–70 pages. The rest of it is young adults partying on an isolated island, despite claiming to be a forced proximity thriller. It is proximity, alright, but where is the suspense? 

My biggest problem with this book right from the start is how much of a pushover the FMC is. Her boyfriend is indifferent towards her, and that is established in a hundred different ways, but she keeps going back for more. I just don't get it. As I was reading this book, I constantly paused and kept notes on how unbelievably, ridiculously stupid she was, and that says A LOT. I couldn't care less about the rest of the characters, since they were all stupid and didn't really have any motives for their actions. 

The plot was full to the brim with plot holes and unanswered questions, leading to a preposterous ending. I can excuse all of these things if I'm having fun with a book, but this was certainly not the case with this one. 

 

Misbehaving children (annoying), a grown adult woman not knowing how to operate a smart home app and being terrified of it, while not sharing her concerns with another adult (childish). That's the mixture that basically this book is based on.

Long, unnecessary descriptions of the house and all of the characters, from Rowan to the children act completely irrationally. It was tiring and ultimately not worth my time.

I kept reading in hopes that eventually it would all come together and make sense, but it really didn't. It was slow and there wasn't really any action. It could surely be ~50 pages shorter.

 This is a spoiler free review.
Βιβλιοκριτική στα ελληνικά ⬇️ 🇬🇷

This book was not only disappointing, but also extremely boring and left me feeling indifferent, which is worse.

Therese, the FMC is just a boring character. The rest of them don't really do any better. We don't really get to know the characters, let alone care about them. But Therese is really getting me worked up, because other than being boring, she has another very annoying trait; despite constantly stereotyping people she keeps claiming that she has grown out of it and doesn't think that way anymore in the same breath. Like, girl.

I think that book would be way more intresting if each of the characters had little snippets of what happened that could be put together but no. The ending was plainly lazy. This was a total waste of my time.


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Όχι μόνο βαρετό, αλλά και αδιάφορο, αυτό το βιβλίο ήταν σπατάλη του χρόνου μου. Η πρωταγωνίστρια, Therese, είναι από τους πιο βαρετούς χαρακτήρες που έχω διαβάσει ποτέ. Δεν μαθαίνουμε ιδιαίτερα πράγματα και για τους ύπολοιπους χαρακτήρες, αλλά ποτέ δεν έφτασα στο σημείο να με νοιάζει ιδιαίτερα η τύχη τους. Η Therese με ενοχλεί περισσότερο από όλους, γιατί προσπαθεί να πείσει (τον εαυτό της; εμάς;) ότι δεν αντιμετωπίζει στερεοτυπικά τους ανθρώπους, ακριβώς στην ίδια πρόταση που σκέφτεται κάτι στερεοτυπικό.

Νομίζω ότι το βιβλίο θα ήταν καλύτερο αν κάθε χαρακτήρας είχε κομμάτια γνώσεις σχετικά με το τι συνέβη, αντί για αυτό το βαρετό τέλος, στο οποίο φαίνεται ότι δεν υπήρξε δουλειά. 

 This is a spoiler free review.
Βιβλιοκριτική στα ελληνικά ⬇️ 🇬🇷

I don’t really get why this book has such a low rating here, because I absolutely loved it. At first, I was so worried that it would be a flop because it gave me A Lesson in Vengeance vibes, which was a huge disappointment for me, but it ended up being exactly what A Lesson in Vengeance had promised to be, but never delivered.

The gothic element, the whole book inside a book concept, murder house, and claustrophobia blend in so well in this one, accompanied by flawed and interesting characters. The chapters were short, and I couldn’t help myself but just keep reading.

I also loved the way the cruelty the high-quality artistic process is so often rumoured to be connected to was depicted. I absolutely despise people who believe that art requires suffering, and there was a perfect representation of that in this book. It just sounds so pompous and ultimately stupid to me, I don’t know. I don’t think that everything must have a deep meaning, especially with the current debate on ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ literature.

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Όταν πρωτοξεκίνησα το βιβλίο ανησυχούσα ότι δεν θα ήταν καλό, γιατί μου έδινε A Lesson in Vengeance vibes, το οποίο ήταν τεράστια απογοήτευση για εμένα, αλλά κατέληξε να είναι ό,τι ακριβώς υποσχόταν το A Lesson in Vengeance ότι θα ήταν, στο εντέλει δεν ανταποκρίθηκε.

Το γοτθικό στοιχείο, η όλη ιδέα του ένα βιβλίο μέσα σε ένα άλλο βιβλίο, το murder house, και η κλειστοφοβία αναμειγνύονται εξαιρετικά, συνοδευόμενο από ενδιαφέροντες χαρακτήρες με ψεγάδια. Τα κεφάλαια ήταν σύντομα και δεν μπορούσα να κρατηθώ να μην συνεχίσω να διαβάζω.

Επίσης μου άρεσε πολύ ο τρόπος απεικόνισης της σκληρότητας που πολύ συχνά φημολογείται ότι συνδέεται με την υψηλής ποιότητας τέχνη. Απεχθάνομαι τους ανθρώπους που συνδέουν την τέχνη με το να υποφέρεις και υπήρχε μία εξαιρετική πραγμάτωση αυτής της ιδεολογίας στο βιβλίο. Απλά μου ακούγεται τόσο πομπώδες και εντελώς ηλίθιο. Δεν θεωρώ ότι όλα πρέπει να έχουν ένα βαθύτερο νόημα, ειδικά σκεπτόμενη το τρέχον debate που υπάρχει για την ‘καλή’ vs ΄κακή’ λογοτεχνία. 

 

This is a spoiler free review.
Βιβλιοκριτική στα ελληνικά ⬇️ 🇬🇷

When I picked up this book and started getting into it, I was very confident that it would be a five-star read. So, what happened, and it ended up being a two-star read, you may ask.

Everything was actually fine until the paranormal came literally out of nowhere and completely changed the vibe of the whole book. The first half of the book is giving The Woman in the Window vibes, which I liked, but I really didn’t see the plot twist coming, mostly because it didn’t really make sense. The female main character feels guilty about something that happened but doesn’t want to do anything about it because she wants to protect her life and reputation. Meanwhile, she drinks herself (almost) to death and literally ruins her life because she can’t live with the guilt. I mean, it doesn’t really make sense.

I get this feeling that the writer was hyper-focused on squeezing in as many plot twists and red herrings as possible, forgetting about the possibility that this might ruin the book, which is pretty much what happened. I don’t necessarily regret reading it, since it had me hooked, but the whole paranormal thing and the ending really spoiled it for me.

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Όταν ξεκίνησα να διαβάζω αυτό το βιβλίο, ήμουν αρκετά σίγουρη ότι θα του έδινα πέντε αστεράκια. Συνεπώς, πώς καταλήξαμε στα δύο;

Όλα ήταν μια χαρά, μέχρι που έσκασε το παραφυσικό από το πουθενά και άλλαξε το vibe όλου του βιβλίου. Το πρώτο μισό μοιάζει με το Η γυναίκα στο παράθυρο που μου άρεσε, αλλά δεν είδα καθόλου το plot twist να έρχεται, κυρίως γιατί δεν έβγαζε νόημα. Η πρωταγωνίστρια νιώθει ένοχη σχετικά με κάτι που συνέβη, αλλά δεν θέλει να κάνει τίποτα σχετικά με αυτό, καθώς θέλει να προστατέψει την ζωή και την φήμη της. Στην ίδια ώρα πίνει οριακά μέχρι θανάτου και κυριολεκτικά καταστρέφει την ζωή και την ζωή της γιατί δεν μπορεί να ζήσει με την ενοχή. Δεν βγάζει νόημα.

Έχω την αίσθηση ότι ο συγγραφέας παρά ήταν συγκεντρωμένος στο να χωρέσει όσα περισσότερα plot twist και red herrings μπορούσε, ξεχνώντας ότι αυτό μπορεί να καταστρέψει το βιβλίο, κάτι το οποίο έγινε. Δεν μετανιώνω απαραίτητα το ότι το διάβασα γιατί είχα σκαλώσει, αλλά όλο αυτό το παραφυσικό και το τέλος μου το χάλασαν πάρα πολύ.

 

 Βιβλιοκριτική στα ελληνικά ⬇️ 🇬🇷

For anyone who liked AHS: Roanoke, this book could probably be for you.

It is a gripping read, for sure. The action starts pretty early on, and you can't really stop reading it, as you constantly want to read one more chapter and find out what happens next. It surely gave me anxiety, like every good forced proximity thriller should.

Before reading it, you should definitely check out the trigger warnings, as reading this can be very triggering. Some triggers include murder, torture, and animal death.

However, I had some issues with it.
1) 'Men who didn't think about war, pain, or loss talked about cars'. So manly and healthy.
2) 'She drove a stick. She knew engines. She knew gearbox. The whining noise was the Toyota Hilux's 3.0-liter V-6 straining hard as it drove up the slope in the first gear'- I can say with a lot of confidence that knowing how to drive a stick does not mean that you can understand the type and gear of a nearby car by its sound.
3) There was no reason for these kids to act this way. I can clearly see some stereotypes and prejudices towards Gen Z.
4) The 44-year-old father could not act like it, but when it's a 24-year-old, mothering comes naturally to her?

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Για όποιον απόλαυσε την σεζόν Roanoke του AHS, αυτό το βιβλίο μάλλον είναι για εσένα.
Είναι εθιστικό, αυτό είναι σίγουρο. Η δράση ξεκινάει από τις πρώτες σελίδες και δεν μπορείς να σταματήσεις να το διαβάζεις, καθώς θες συνεχώς να διαβάσεις ακόμα ένα κεφάλαιο για να μάθεις τι γίνεται μετά. Σίγουρα μου προκάλεσε άγχος όσο το διάβαζα, όπως πρέπει να κάνουν όλα τα σωστά forced proximity θρίλερ.
Πριν το διαβάσατε ελέγξτε σίγουρα τα trigger warnings ex. Murder, torture, animal death

Υπήρχαν σίγουρα πράγματα που με ενόχλησαν, όπως το ότι η μητρότητα έρχεται φυσικά στην 24χρονη Heather, ο τρόπος που συμπεριφέρονται τα παιδιά και η έξτρα δόση αχρείαστης ματσίλας που παραμονεύει εδώ και εκεί. 

I really liked the first book of the series, the second one was okay, but this was awful.

I really hated how throughout the whole book Millie was like, 'Oh, I am old and ugly, and my husband is so hot and sociable'. Like, girl, come on. Moreover, Enzo in this book was acting completely out of character, doing a tonne of suspicious things and acting like a man child, asking inappropriate questions in front of others, and she having to teach him how to clean a table after dinner. What was that, exactly?

The ending left me feeling indifferent because, by the time it came around, I was so tired of this book. McFadden should have stopped after the first one.