I've spent over two months with this (audio)book and definitely got a little emotional at the end of it. I enjoyed being able to read it slowly -- to have the story sink into my bones and emerge in a quiet moment, to let it linger in the back of my mind for a while.
I actually tried reading in ebook first, but it was just a lot easier to immerse myself in the audiobook. I liked the narrator -- I think Shaun Taylor-Corbett really captured the voice of the story as a whole with a generally sharp, snappy narration that still had the range to capture the emotional depth of some of the cyclic violence happening and the more atmospheric parts.
I personally really enjoyed the psychological horror element -- the characters themselves are put into a lot of trippy situations (that eventually lead to violence), but I felt like none of the violence was gratuitous. To me, it was certainly plentiful, but it also all had its purpose in highlighting different emotional manipulations and states. Our mysterious 'antagonist' is like a puppet master, never doing the deed itself, but orchestrating these twisted scenarios for the 'protagonists.'
I do think some readers will struggle with the mid-novel narrative shift and POV change. I don't want to say too much about it, but I think changing this would have fundamentally left a different story, and I don't really know if that other, hypothetical story would be better or worse.
Ultimately though, I enjoyed the ending and I'd recommend the audiobook highly for anyone looking for a horror experience that oscillates between a billowing cloud of dread and a knife-sharp, purposeful violence.
Listened on 1.3-2x speed.
Content Warnings: [death of pets and multiple animals, gore, murder, undertones of cheating, violence, anti-Indigenous racism (not condoned)]
I actually tried reading in ebook first, but it was just a lot easier to immerse myself in the audiobook. I liked the narrator -- I think Shaun Taylor-Corbett really captured the voice of the story as a whole with a generally sharp, snappy narration that still had the range to capture the emotional depth of some of the cyclic violence happening and the more atmospheric parts.
I personally really enjoyed the psychological horror element -- the characters themselves are put into a lot of trippy situations (that eventually lead to violence), but I felt like none of the violence was gratuitous. To me, it was certainly plentiful, but it also all had its purpose in highlighting different emotional manipulations and states. Our mysterious 'antagonist' is like a puppet master, never doing the deed itself, but orchestrating these twisted scenarios for the 'protagonists.'
I do think some readers will struggle with the mid-novel narrative shift and POV change. I don't want to say too much about it, but I think changing this would have fundamentally left a different story, and I don't really know if that other, hypothetical story would be better or worse.
Ultimately though, I enjoyed the ending and I'd recommend the audiobook highly for anyone looking for a horror experience that oscillates between a billowing cloud of dread and a knife-sharp, purposeful violence.
Listened on 1.3-2x speed.
Content Warnings: [death of pets and multiple animals, gore, murder, undertones of cheating, violence, anti-Indigenous racism (not condoned)]