five's reviews
17 reviews

Bullet Train by Kōtarō Isaka

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adventurous dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke And Other Misfortunes by Eric LaRocca

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dark funny sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.0

Unintentionally funny. Genuinely one of the worst books I've ever read. He admitted he wrote it extremely quickly and it shows. Everything is shock value; the characters have no chemistry and it is so rushed that their dynamic doesn't even make sense. I had the collection version with 3 other stories and the second one was the most intriguing to me, but it still didn't feel worth my time at the end of reading it. Read if you want a laugh and to feel good about your own writing.

Content Warnings

Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

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dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

It was cute! Read it in one night. Super light-hearted read that was enjoyable and got me into Hendrix's other books. I thought there was a couple areas that could have been done differently or reworked to have some more impact or just for the sake of the overall plot, but it honestly wasn't that deep--it felt like reading just a quirky little story. Relatable jokes for people that have worked in retail before.

The Grip of It by Jac Jemc

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dark sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Almost DNF'd. Really didn't enjoy the writing style and thought most of it was boring. Each chapter was usually 2-3 pages long and would end/switch POV for seemingly no reason. The plot wasn't really strong and

nothing much happened to them, leaving the ending to be ultimately extremely unsatisfying.

I feel like there could have been some really cool potential to do more with the woman who died and Rolf's entire character, but they were ultimately just kind of used as a device to be like "hey, this neighbor guy is pretty creepy, huh?"

So much is left unanswered and vague but not in a gothic, mysterious way. It's like the author had a lot of good ideas to go off of but didn't fully flesh them out and instead just began writing.

Content Warnings