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cryptofauna's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
this was a really good time! I was hooked from the start, and i was so into it the whole time. A super interesting premise and format with all the letters, and managed to have two points of view through one person. i loved the worldbuilding!
this was a recommendation from both my parents which i am glad i followed
this was a recommendation from both my parents which i am glad i followed
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Incest, and Gun violence
sashahc's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
What if you woke up with amnesia and surrounded by dead bodies to discover that you were an extremely high level agent in a British government organization managing supernatural affairs? “The Rook” by Daniel O’Malley is part office comedy, part spy novel, and part paranormal mystery. It’s super fun, occasionally gross, and I’m very excited it’s already a series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
suzanneloving's review
4.5
The italics killed me but otherwise a fascinating tale! Got a bit eye-roll-y at one part of very common trope. But, yeah, good read!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Torture, Body horror, Violence, Self harm, Medical trauma, and Gore
Minor: War, Suicide, Slavery, Incest, and Physical abuse
maxierosalee's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Rating: 3.5 stars.
_______________
Should have been called "Exposition Dump: The Novel."
This is one of those books that had a stellar premise but was unfortunately marred by subpar execution.
A woman, Myfawny, wakes up in a park with absolutely no memory of who she is and is only guided by letters written by herself from before she was saddled with her amnesia. As it turns out, she's a person of significant supernatural ability in a secret organization whose job is to protect the world from supernatural phenomena while also keeping them secret from the general populous. The basis of this premise has been used many times before, but it's an appealing facet of worldbuilding that's led to many successful and endearing properties before.
The main issue is that this kind of setup requires a lot of knowledge to be passed onto the reader so that they know what's going on. And this leads to now of the trickiest parts of writing...exposition. Sometimes, the only way to give readers the knowledge they need about the world in your story is just through telling them in prose. And if it's written in a genuinely engaging way, I usually don't mind. In fact, I think learning about an interesting world can be fun.
In this book, it is not fun. Much of the exposition we are given through Myfawny's letters from before she got amnesia. It's a very cool setup that's dampened by the fact that these letters go on for pages. They make up entire chapters in some cases. The letters that detail was Myfawny was doing before she got amnesia and are tied to the plot are kind of interesting, at least. But half of them are just info-drops on certain individuals, about the Chequey organization, things like that that aren't connected to the plot. It brings the story to a grinding, uninteresting halt. And it's a shame because I already think the book has pacing issues, where it feels like the plot plods along in the early-mid section of the book before suddenly ramping up around the 60% mark, and then slowing down in favor of a subplot of introducing another character to Myfawny before ramping up once more around the 80% mark.
It also doesn't help that Myfawny in general is one of those clever and snarky protagonists. She always quipping about things, likes to make nonchalant comments in tense situations, and has skewed priorities (asking for coffee during important operations). These kinds of characters, I find, are very hard to write well. I've only seen them pulled off a handful of times. Most of the time, they're just incredibly annoying and also hurt the atmosphere in a book. How am I supposed to take anything seriously in this book when the character doesn't themselves? How am I supposed to find weight in anything that happens in the story when the character is treating it like a big inconvenience?
It's really too bad because there are some really cool concepts in here. Some of the characters, like Gestalt, were a fascinating character concept that I thought was interesting to see fleshed out. The main villains of the book (no spoilers) had some great, visceral descriptions going for them. Ingrid was cool. Alrich was also kind of cool. There was one part in the book that got a genuine chuckle out of me and I thought was kind of legitimately clever and not the artificial cleverness the book tries to make us think (won't put details because of spoilers).The last part of the book where the plot ramps up did kind of have me hooked and I read through it pretty fast.
This book has a sequel, which makes sense considering how the book ended. Too bad I'm not interested in continuing.
_______________
Should have been called "Exposition Dump: The Novel."
This is one of those books that had a stellar premise but was unfortunately marred by subpar execution.
A woman, Myfawny, wakes up in a park with absolutely no memory of who she is and is only guided by letters written by herself from before she was saddled with her amnesia. As it turns out, she's a person of significant supernatural ability in a secret organization whose job is to protect the world from supernatural phenomena while also keeping them secret from the general populous. The basis of this premise has been used many times before, but it's an appealing facet of worldbuilding that's led to many successful and endearing properties before.
The main issue is that this kind of setup requires a lot of knowledge to be passed onto the reader so that they know what's going on. And this leads to now of the trickiest parts of writing...exposition. Sometimes, the only way to give readers the knowledge they need about the world in your story is just through telling them in prose. And if it's written in a genuinely engaging way, I usually don't mind. In fact, I think learning about an interesting world can be fun.
In this book, it is not fun. Much of the exposition we are given through Myfawny's letters from before she got amnesia. It's a very cool setup that's dampened by the fact that these letters go on for pages. They make up entire chapters in some cases. The letters that detail was Myfawny was doing before she got amnesia and are tied to the plot are kind of interesting, at least. But half of them are just info-drops on certain individuals, about the Chequey organization, things like that that aren't connected to the plot. It brings the story to a grinding, uninteresting halt. And it's a shame because I already think the book has pacing issues, where it feels like the plot plods along in the early-mid section of the book before suddenly ramping up around the 60% mark, and then slowing down in favor of a subplot of introducing another character to Myfawny before ramping up once more around the 80% mark.
It also doesn't help that Myfawny in general is one of those clever and snarky protagonists. She always quipping about things, likes to make nonchalant comments in tense situations, and has skewed priorities (asking for coffee during important operations). These kinds of characters, I find, are very hard to write well. I've only seen them pulled off a handful of times. Most of the time, they're just incredibly annoying and also hurt the atmosphere in a book. How am I supposed to take anything seriously in this book when the character doesn't themselves? How am I supposed to find weight in anything that happens in the story when the character is treating it like a big inconvenience?
It's really too bad because there are some really cool concepts in here. Some of the characters, like Gestalt, were a fascinating character concept that I thought was interesting to see fleshed out. The main villains of the book (no spoilers) had some great, visceral descriptions going for them. Ingrid was cool. Alrich was also kind of cool. There was one part in the book that got a genuine chuckle out of me and I thought was kind of legitimately clever and not the artificial cleverness the book tries to make us think (won't put details because of spoilers).The last part of the book where the plot ramps up did kind of have me hooked and I read through it pretty fast.
This book has a sequel, which makes sense considering how the book ended. Too bad I'm not interested in continuing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, and Gore
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Incest
jessicakornelsen's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Confinement, Murder, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Sexual assault, Medical content, Medical trauma, Classism, Blood, Animal cruelty, and Animal death
benzetsu's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Moderate: Gun violence, Vomit, and Death
Minor: Incest
karpetking's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Vomit, and Torture
Moderate: Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, and Excrement
xyzsai's review
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Minor: Incest
maximum_quinn's review
mysterious
tense
medium-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? It's complicated
3.5
A fascinating premise, but the female protagonist has a few moments where you are very cognizant of the fact that the author is a man (multiple comments about her own breast size, for example). It's an interesting story, but I probably won't be picking up the rest of the series due to the author's voice.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Moderate: Body shaming, Classism, and Torture
Minor: Vomit
itsnotalakeitsanocean's review
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-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? It's complicated
2.75
I DNF this book ages before this site was even a thing and decided to pick it up again because I was on a paranormal fiction kick after playing Remedy Entertainment's Control (which you should definitely experience in some form or another if you've read this book).
Long story short: this book is a huge disappointment with tantalisingly good bits hidden like needles in a haystack, and could have benefitted from being shorter.
Things I liked:
Long story short: this book is a huge disappointment with tantalisingly good bits hidden like needles in a haystack, and could have benefitted from being shorter.
Things I liked:
- I liked the contrast between Myfanwy before and after losing her memory. I can see why it would be a point of contention for some people, but I felt like it fit the fact
Pre-Amnesia!Myfanwy did snoop around Chequy's finances, but lacked the confidence and was too marginalised by her peers to take the initiative. Her losing her memories gave her the push she needed to get the ball rolling in my opinion. - Chequy felt like a believable organisation. I enjoyed reading how they conducted operations, the efforts they went to cover up paranormal events
and you could feel how heavy the consequences of several of its members turning traitor were as a result. - The action/horror sequences are well written.
The flesh cube in the police station bit really made my skin crawl.
Things I did not like:
- It was pretty blatant at times that the author was a cishet man writing women, almost bordering on "breasting boobily" esque descriptions at times, and it felt overly catty.
- I struggled to suspend my disbelief during Pre-Amnesia!Myfanwy's letters to her Post-Amnesia self; specifically the fact she would be able to accurately recall every single word in all of the conversations she had. Eye for detail or not, there are some things you are just not going to remember.
- Several of the background characters feel like caricatures that are just there to fulfill a role, but at the same time if those characters didn't exist their absence would be noticeable. An example being a bodyguard for Myfanwy late into the book who is Scottish-Japanese who dies not a chapter after he is introduced, and the best I can remember about him was the author's dodgy description about how he cussed up a storm of a mixed slur Japanese and Gaelic.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Medical content, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Misogyny
Minor: Body shaming and Racism