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chickelope's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Gun violence
Moderate: Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Abandonment
novellearts's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
5hadow_girl's review
5.0
Conspiracies!
I got sucked in, and couldn't put this book down.
I've studied a couple of the things talked about in this book, but now I want to dig back in...deep!
I got sucked in, and couldn't put this book down.
I've studied a couple of the things talked about in this book, but now I want to dig back in...deep!
errantdreams's review
3.0
Zach’s mysterious sleepwalking spells are intriguing, certainly. While he has them he dreams about chasing his wife across the road to an abandoned house. When he finally goes there, he finds racist graffiti and a bunch of numbers scrawled on the walls. Given what we later find out about how and why he’s sleepwalking, most of this doesn’t really make sense to me. While I know how the numbers fit into the puzzle, I still don’t know why they got scrawled on the walls, for instance, and all of the obvious explanations don’t really seem to fit into the rest of it. While I also understand what the deal is with the rest of the graffiti, again given later developments it seemed… unnecessary. Hell, in general his sleepwalking for most of the story doesn’t seem to make much sense with the whole purpose of it later.
Basically, he’s been “programmed” to carry out a mission. All of this stuff seems to be meant to set him up as a patsy, but there’s plenty to do that without all of this excess detail–all this stuff accomplishes is to make him suspicious, thus acting counter to everything the bad guys should want. Also, shouldn’t the bad guys have worried that having Michelle disappear when she did could result in Zach going to jail and thus being unable to carry out that mission? And shouldn’t Zach’s fake psychiatrist have waited until after the big climax to mysteriously vanish from her office?
Stan is a conspiracy theorist and brings a psychiatric student, Alicia, into things. Stan doesn’t just help Zach set up cameras–he sticks around for a night or two, helps to check out the house across the street, gets Alicia to figure out what might be going on with the sleepwalking, and even calls in a couple of acquaintances who might be able to help. He’s a die-hard conspiracy theorist, but it’s hard not to start giggling as soon as chemtrails enter the conversation.
I found the explanations for the sleepwalking fascinating, even if the details didn’t all add up for me. The climax of the story is gripping. I wanted to understand more about Michelle (she’s an exceedingly flimsy character), and the focus on conspiracy theories was a little eyeroll-inducing. But there’s a solid story in here that was interesting to read.
Stan is a conspiracy theorist and brings a psychiatric student, Alicia, into things. Stan doesn’t just help Zach set up cameras–he sticks around for a night or two, helps to check out the house across the street, gets Alicia to figure out what might be going on with the sleepwalking, and even calls in a couple of acquaintances who might be able to help. He’s a die-hard conspiracy theorist, but it’s hard not to start giggling as soon as chemtrails enter the conversation.
I found the explanations for the sleepwalking fascinating, even if the details didn’t all add up for me. The climax of the story is gripping. I wanted to understand more about Michelle (she’s an exceedingly flimsy character), and the focus on conspiracy theories was a little eyeroll-inducing. But there’s a solid story in here that was interesting to read.
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