Storyline: 4 Stars
When I first heard this book was coming out, I was excited. I read another of Turton’s books in 2020 and I loved it! I was excited, and then when I started seeing books reviewed about it, I was less excited. The ratings were fairly low on Goodreads for the book. However, in my opinion it was underrated on Goodreads.
The concept is wild, as most of Turton’s books are. As the book goes on, the crazy post-apogoloptic world becomes more clear and the mysteries are solved. The mystery of the strange island and world are intertwined with the murder mystery, which I appreciated. I understand why some readers may not appreciate the book because there were a lot of characters and things to keep track of, but I found it pretty interesting. I definitely wanted to keep reading. I don’t think Turton’s execution of the concept was perfect, and I still have some unanswered questions about the world and the characters, but overall I think the book was pretty good.
One thing that I appreciated that others may not was the narration of the book. I thought Turton used a completely unique narrator viewpoint and turned it into something really cool. Right away it was somewhat confusing learning who the narrator was and how it worked, but I think that Turton took a gamble on his point of view style and in my opinion it worked. Those that are not accustomed to different narration styles outside of simple first or third person may not appreciate it, but I did!
Parental Guidance: 80% Recommend
Like Turton’s other book that I read, there was nothing really to complain about as far as the content. I would recommend this book 80% of the time for parental guidance. The language was clean, there were good role model characters, there was not any revelry. There was of course a murder and some violence that went along with it, but it was not graphic. There was a hint in the book of some rainbow characters, but it was never confirmed, and nothing remotely happened between them.
Overall, this was a solid book. I think that anyone high school or above would be fine reading the book.
Real Book Chat
*Spoilers Ahead*
This book roped me in. I kept reading reviews about how people struggled reading it, but I did not understand where they were coming from! I thought that the characters and the story and narration style were so interesting. I was intrigued with the world building and getting glimpses of the world before the fog and what happened after the fog.
I definitely thought something was off with the villagers from the start, but I wasn’t exactly sure. One of my ideas was that they were not really human. I appreciate that Turton did not wait until the very end to reveal that because it grew more and more obvious as the book went on that the villagers were different than the elders. Turton kept describing how the elders were bigger and stronger and smarter. There were a few more obvious things, such as I knew that Blackhearth was open even when it was first mentioned, but there were enough twists that even the things that I figured out right away were not all straight forward.
Related Posts
An Ember in the Ashes
Storyline: 4 Stars This book had been on my list for years. I remember when the first installment came out
Migrations
Storyline: 4 Stars I read this for my book club, and we had never heard of this book before searching