hannahmayhere's reviews
590 reviews

Note: I was given an advanced reader’s edition from a friend so a few things may have changed in the final publications. 

There were so many things in the book that’s were just inherently unacceptable  that I never even had the chance to get into the plot. The fact that a suicide is explained as a “release” and the MC is grateful for it is unacceptable and dangerous. Not naming two characters and instead calling them “swarthy boy” is racist and unacceptable. As we’re all the comments about the food they were cooking smelling bad and all of the comments on their language. And why did the author feel the need to repeatedly call out the races of everyone but the main characters (who I guess we’re supposed to presume are white since it wasn’t mentioned? Which in itself is a problem). There were many other subtle and sometimes not so subtle racist, homophobic, transphobic comments (referring to someone as a girl-man), and fatphobic (“how could anyone sleep with that whale of a woman with her massive rolls of fat, hanging like jewelry around her next and wrists her horrible heaving bosom”). 

In addition to those deal-breakers, I didn’t really every enjoy the book. I never found myself truly wanting to know what happened. And when the “twist” was revealed it was even more frustrating and it was just felt like an author/editor throwing you off for most of the book, rather than revealing it but by bit. I guessed the about 80% of the twist and was disappointed in the other 20%. Plus it was an odd read as it shifted POV multiple times and shifts time lines without explanation making it difficult to follow sometimes.