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beefmaster's review against another edition
2.0
while I was reading this, I was trying to put my finger on why some anachronisms annoy me and others don't. Starving Zoe is full of anachronisms and bits and bobs that stick out awkwardly, such as the protagonist thinking he would give a Prize to the person named Nobel who invented Dynamite or when the protagonist muses about "political incorrectness." Most of these induced eye-rolling in yours truly and one had me wince aloud. The dialogue didn't bother me so much, anachronism-wise, but I did kind of scoff when the self-proclaimed uneducated protagonist mentioned "karma." There's no way this guy who grew up extremely poor on the streets of Boston in the mid 1800s knows what karma is! But I still can't quite pinpoint why this annoys me when in other historical fiction, I welcome anachronisms. Perhaps it's due to how elbow-nudging everything is? The anachronisms aren't there for structural or thematic purposes (eg. the bus and costuming in Jesus Christ Superstar) but rather as in-jokes for the reader to "get." No thank you, I don't want to read Ready Player One again. Anyway, this is my third of the nine Splatter Westerns and so far the worst.
reads_vicariously's review against another edition
I'm sorry, but I just couldn't get into this book. I love the splatter western series and have no problem with vulgarity, but there has to be some kind of point to it and it has to be done well. This one, for me, was pointless. We're stuck in the head of the narrator and we can't get out. He's incredibly misogynistic, sexist, a little racist, and just all around awful. I don't know if we ever escape his disgusting mind-prison because I DNF'd the book around 30% in. Like I said there's a right way to do crude and a wrong way. For me this one was way wrong.
johnlynchbooks's review
2.0
Another Splatter Western is here, horror fans. This is book number 5, and there are many more to come.
We follow Robert Jack in a first person story which has got a lot of gore and violence in it. a lot of sex references. This being horror, you'd expect that. The problem with those things for me here is nuance. There is an overall lack of it here. Every part of this extreme book seems heavy-handed. There were parts of this story that were interesting, and that I really enjoyed. But, for every removal of someones digits, there are needless pages that feel repetitive or wasted. Early on there was a hypothetical conversation between two characters that never happened, and really didn't serve any purpose to the story it seemed, aside from just adding to a word count. Things bog down in the middle before picking up for the ending.
There were things in here that will be, problematic, I think, for a lot of readers. This being a first person narrative, and the main character is a scumbag, will make people potentially feel they are complicit in the characters actions. Personally, that type of stuff doesn't bother me, I don't mind being along for a first person POV of a character who is a terrible person.
When I finished this book, I wasn't sure how I wanted to rate it, and so I just went with my gut. a 2 feels about right here, maybe a 2.5, There are parts that I enjoyed, but for each part I enjoyed, there was something else that bugged me. This one just wasn't for me. I still encourage anyone with passing interest in this series to check it out, a book that doesn't work for me might do fine for you.
We follow Robert Jack in a first person story which has got a lot of gore and violence in it. a lot of sex references. This being horror, you'd expect that. The problem with those things for me here is nuance. There is an overall lack of it here. Every part of this extreme book seems heavy-handed. There were parts of this story that were interesting, and that I really enjoyed. But, for every removal of someones digits, there are needless pages that feel repetitive or wasted. Early on there was a hypothetical conversation between two characters that never happened, and really didn't serve any purpose to the story it seemed, aside from just adding to a word count. Things bog down in the middle before picking up for the ending.
There were things in here that will be, problematic, I think, for a lot of readers. This being a first person narrative, and the main character is a scumbag, will make people potentially feel they are complicit in the characters actions. Personally, that type of stuff doesn't bother me, I don't mind being along for a first person POV of a character who is a terrible person.
When I finished this book, I wasn't sure how I wanted to rate it, and so I just went with my gut. a 2 feels about right here, maybe a 2.5, There are parts that I enjoyed, but for each part I enjoyed, there was something else that bugged me. This one just wasn't for me. I still encourage anyone with passing interest in this series to check it out, a book that doesn't work for me might do fine for you.
readingvicariously's review
I'm sorry, but I just couldn't get into this book. I love the splatter western series and have no problem with vulgarity, but there has to be some kind of point to it and it has to be done well. This one, for me, was pointless. We're stuck in the head of the narrator and we can't get out. He's incredibly misogynistic, sexist, a little racist, and just all around awful. I don't know if we ever escape his disgusting mind-prison because I DNF'd the book around 30% in. Like I said there's a right way to do crude and a wrong way. For me this one was way wrong.
kkehoe's review
2.0
What starts as a truly interesting idea soon plods seemingly endlessly in in the most juvenile of tangents and an obsession with semen and genitalia humor. As if that weren't enough, both major characters' arcs inexplicably change in what seems to be a lost effort at a deep and meaningful ending.
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