Katelyn Brady

A Little Slow and Thin

Revisado: 08-27-24

The premise is so enticing, but the prose feels like it was written for audiobook and relies heavily on Imogen Church’s talent as a narrator to add character, tension and body to the sparse writing. Sans describing the physical appearance and clothing choices of every character to a repetitive, extreme degree for a large cast of characters, it took a long while (and a winnowing of the numbers) for me to be able to discern who was who clearly. There is little actual mystery and aside from one last, lukewarm reveal at very end, everything plays out like you expect it to. Overall it is weaker than Ruth’s other works.

Also, there is a lot of “idiot ball” being tossed around from character to character in a story that has somewhat of a theme about humanizing the people taken advantage of by reality TV shows as more than their typecasts.

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Great voice work

Revisado: 08-23-24

I think my only issue with this novel was that it does feel a bit contrived with how all of the connected people wind up at the same time and place for the events of the story, and some of the biggest twists were easily spotted if you’ve read Foley before, but it was still and engaging and satisfying read. Francesca is a such a wicked little karma Houdini and perfect villain.

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Boring

Revisado: 02-25-24

The somewhat mechanical voice of the narrator does not help a descriptively thin and emotionally straight forward, predictable story. There is a glimmer of true lingering horror near the end regarding the trauma and damaged sense of reality one character suffers, but that’s about it. The violence and gore was there, but didn’t inspire much feeling of tension or fear, about the same impact as watching a lets play of a first person shooter. Just watching all these non real pixels being turned into splatter.

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Better Narrator, Blander Story

Revisado: 02-25-24

This just kind of felt like a retread, without the added building tension and reveal of the hidden maliciousness of its characters the first had… so it all plays out as predicted. The prose gets pretty purple for long stretches of time at the climax, and this combined with (again?) kinda straightforward descriptions of violence and pain. It’s so under detailed it almost feels non graphic. I want horror to bother me long after it’s over, for splatterpunk to disgust me long after it’s over, but I was just waiting for this story to be over so I could go to bed.

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Awkward Narration

Revisado: 02-12-24

Story was fine, but I really struggled to get into this book multiple times. The narration being both flat and droning but also really odd emphasis on seemingly random words, some mispronunciations, and cheesy acting for the dialogue (which may be on the part of the writer, as a lot of the dialogue comes off as caricature).

Storywise, the plotting and twists were good, but the visual descriptions were pretty vague and didn’t take advantage of the setting, to the point that once the gorey details start to appear it all feels a little cartoonish. Like it didn’t properly ground itself first in the sensory perceptions of reality.

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Entertaining, but a little predictable

Revisado: 03-17-23

Predictable if you’re familiar with her work or similar whodunnit’s with a side of rich white people drama, and some of the reveals are a little contrived. Ending was also a tad underwhelming for all the build up. Still, a very fun and engaging read. And that counts for something, damnit.

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