Reviews and Comments

The real monster is dropping the R-Slur in a lazy attempt to make a character an #Ally to a lazy stereotype of autism. I was enjoying this book until I got clotheslined by that. I tried to keep going, but it left a bad taste in my mouth so I had to set this one down.

This book is a slow burn. Maybe the payoff is worth it, but an f-slur (which I let slide for a couple of audiobook-hours) and a t-slur, neither with anything resembling plot relevance, and it soured my mood on this book. At this point I feel like my time has been wasted by some boring teenagers with boring teenager problems.

If I want to immerse myself in homophobia and climate apocalypse from the perspective of a teenager then I could just hang out at the local community college. No thanks.

The real monster is when I think about my dead wife and have the most massive erection of my life.

I enjoyed this book, but King really is horny and the way he writes women shows it. Of all the King books I've read, this one was the least egregious. The sex was between consenting adults, at least.

The ending was meh.

I didn't finish this one. The momentum just kind of peters out halfway thru. It has a strong start, and it has continuity, but it feels disjointed (in a non-horrific way). It also feels weird reading a book with so many n-slurs in it written by a white man.

This is definitely a children's book, but it's pretty good. I am a bit shocked at how heavy the material is, though. I didn't notice as a child, but Count Olaf is more than just an evil scoundrel, he's [strongly implied to be] a pedophile. And not just because he attempts to marry a child, which is obviously just a scheme to get money, but because of how he talks about Violet. Gross.

I hate every single character, but they are all trying to kill each other and it's fun to watch.

The main theme of this series appears to be class consciousness, with the catalyst of the conflict being a bunch of Men's Rights Activists (derogatory).

I enjoyed learning more about Drizzt and the Forgotten Realms, but it is very uncomfortable to have characters calling Drizzt a "black devil", especially when the character is trying to whip up lynch mobs against Drizzt. In universe the hatred of the Drow makes sense, but this book heavily implies that the only black people in Faerûn are Drow. (A character mentioned that as soon as he saw Drizzt's arms he knew he was a Drow.) The racism themes here are about as well thought out as Zootopia's oppressed being literal predators.

The real monster is envy.

I enjoyed the slow buildup in this book, especially since the pace was fast even if the actual whodunit wasn't until most of the way through the book. I did not enjoy the fact that for most of the last two hours (of the audiobook) I was internally screaming "IT WAS THEM! THEY DID IT!" and desperately wanting the story to wrap up.

I do think it wrapped up nicely (eh), but it was a long time to go forcing myself to finish.

Also, for a crime writer, the protagonist Nora is hella naive when it comes to cops. Lampshading it didn't make it any less excruciating to listen to.

Could have been 4 or even 5 stars, but I had to slog through from figuring out all out to having my suspicions confirmed.

What defines a thing? What defines a person? Who are you? Are you sure?

In a place where things seem to be more than what they seem to be, where you can't trust your senses and you can't trust your comrades, all you can do is try to find the truth... and try not to lose yourself.

When I first read this book, I didn't realize it was the first in a series. I was satisfied with the ending, which is rather open ended. It seemed fitting not to have a definitive ending, given how the very nature of reality begins to fray at the seams in Area X.

I enjoyed the ride, but I was disappointed by the ending. Also, I thought this was going to be a sci-fi thriller because the promo description said there the main character's boss was using time travel to commit violent crime. It's not a thriller, not even close.

I only got about halfway through. Not because it's bad, just because I had a hard time focusing on the plot because it was purely Feminist vs MRA, despite characters literally interacting with Lucy Parsons and Emma Goldman, and a Marx quote being attributed to Harriet Tubman at the very beginning.

It's a feminist power fantasy, and it's firmly supportive of trans women and nonbinary people, and I love it for that, but it just wasn't clicking for me.