Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Clown in a Cornfield

Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare

6 reviews

dblue236's review

dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

The title and cover tell you pretty much everything you need to know about this book. It's part teen slasher, part satire, all gore, and I honestly kind of loved it despite itself. It reminded me of the movies I loved as a teen, and the "reveal" toward the end that made it feel more like satire added to the fun, rather than detracting from it. This definitely didn't move any mountains, but that wasn't the intent and sometimes that's okay.

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jackieyvette's review

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adventurous dark 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

4.5

I've been on a little horror binge all month and came across this title on a TikTok video comparing it to slasher movies and I got to say this one is sitting pretty up there with the best of them. It was fast and fun and everything you need a high school slasher. The characters are believable and relatable and are people you knew in high school, too. I don't know too much about small town life, but I gotta say this one sounds a lot like what I know it to be like; battle of the generations.
Cole and Quinn are great leads and the way their stories moved was great to read, even back ground characters were very compelling and it was sad to see some of them die

especially Tucker and Janet

.
I heard it's getting made into a show/movie and I can't wait.

Crying score: nah.

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house_of_hannah's review

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This book is a bit of a rollercoaster. I absolutely do not care about the first 100 pages, and found it to be quite boring and cliché. I was not expecting to be 1/3 of the way into the story before anything happens. But when it does the story absolutely takes off.

I was quite invested in the next 100 pages of the book. The murders were just stacking up one after another. I did not realize going into this that everything happens in just one night, so we jump from 0 to 100 instantly. For that last 1/3 though it just started to go downhill again. After we start having some reveals I'm just left thinking, "Really ? This is what we're going with ?".

When the plan is all laid out for us it's actually laughable. The culprits are truly some of the dumbest antagonists I've ever come across, and honestly, I think that's done on purpose.

It truly felt like a repeat of the January 6th insurrection at the US capitol, down to the fact that people were caught because of their phone's GPS.

The only likable characters here are Quinn's dad, and maayyyybe Quinn herself. I find her to just mainly be an observer though; almost like a self insert for the reader or something. She never really has a chance to show her personality, so we never get to know her.

Essentially this book is

what would happen if you were trapped in a town where the MAGA crowd was murdering teens who annoyed them.

AKA my worst nightmare.

Overall this is a book where I greatly enjoyed the parts that were good, but really disliked the parts that weren't. I will probably skip the sequel.

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theliteraryhooker's review

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dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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mapscitiesandsongs's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I am bit conflicted. On one hand it was extremely entertaining and I couldn't put the book down. On the other hand there were a lot of things I disliked. First of all, I didn't know it was a slasher book and had completely different expectations. But that's on me. The characters were a bit flat for my taste but I don't think you can expect to have characters with a lot of depth in this kind of book. But still, a lot of plot points didn't really work for me because the characters were so flat and there was zero explanation to their actions. During the whole book I had literally no idea who Cole was as a person and how his life has been up to that point.

Like yeah, his mother died and then his sister too. But what else? And his father was no different. The reasoning behind his need to kill his son is just so freaking stupid. He mentioned that he lost his son even before the death of his daughter, but what exactly happened? Was it because of the Youtube stuff or was is the generational thing?

Can't really say anything about Quinn. She felt like a side character and I didn't care what happened to her to be honest. The romance was just weird.

I wasn't on board with these romantic feelings or whatever between Quinn and Cole and then the author pulled a 180 and introduces a romance between Cole and Rust out of nowhere. I didn't see it coming at all and it just felt so forced.

My biggest problem were the villains and the whole reasoning behind the whole thing. It was just ridiculous and too forced/political. It felt like an agenda being pushed down my throat. I actually had to snort when I found out why the killings happened. It's laughable and flimsy at best. The villains were predictable, dumb and felt cartoonish. The ending made everything even worse though.

Saying 'Even if they killed everyone, they would have been caught regardless' just undid the entire thing. It was all pointless.

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lee_brahms's review

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dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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