Cassandra Khaw

In terms of language this was clearly a delight!! But also a bit of a struggle for me, because I missed some marks or explaination on the japanese words and ghostsforms.
The twists were amazingly disturbing and I was wondering from the middle till the bitter end.
BUT as this is just a short novella I can't really argue about the lack of describtion and character depts... even though (not sorry) I would have loved to know how these monsters really looked like in detail! And same goes to the characters. What confused me was the non specific gender of the protagonists in the first pages but it didn't ruin anything for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Erewhon Books for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

CW: Abusive Relationships, Co-Dependency, Body-Horror, Amputations, surgeries, suicide 

So, this was a weird one. It was not at all what I was expecting. I mean I liked it but there where just elements that again and again confused me and made me like it less. I’ll give it 3.5 stars.

I was expecting a high stakes action adventure with a crew of badass mercenaries. And this is that, but only barely. The story focuses more on the characters and their trauma, where they have been in the last 40 years and who hates who. The ‘plot’ is resolved in the last 30 pages or so. That did annoy me a bit since I myself normally prefer plot over characters and this book didn’t give me that. As always, this is just my opinion, your experience might differ greatly.

And I liked the characters. They are cool and bad-ass and queer and even though none of them are entirely human their motivations and feelings are very understandable.

Ok, now to the stuff that I didn’t like. Like I already mentioned, I didn’t lime that the plot very much took a back seat in this, I think the synopsis is very misleading.

Next: (This has to come with the info that I read an ARC and these issues might be fixed in the final copy) There are so many mistakes in this. Typos and just wrong words and mixed-up names. I really hope that issue will be fixed because it makes the book even more confusing.

What do I mean with ‘even more’ confusing? Let’s just say the writing is…very elaborate.  Iknow English is my second language, and I am always prepared to not understand everything in a Sci-Fi novel but even then… this writing is just way to complicated. In some sentences I can’t understand half of what is being said. And it’s not just the normal Sci-Fi level of that. The word choices just seem designed to show of and brag that ‘look, I used a fancy word!’. It just annoyed me. I think that might be because the author used to write short stories, where very stylized writing like this can add to the intrigue of the story but in my opinion, it doesn’t really work in a full-length novel.

So, in conclusion: If you want to read a story about badass sci-fi characters and don’t mind a little confusion, check this out!

John Persons works as a private investigator, a real 1920th relic in the modern times, and not quite human either. A boy asks him to kill his stepdad. Not his usual kind of work, but the stepdad is a monster, and the boys are afraid for their live. And the best bet to kill a monster is after all another monster.

I find this hard to rate. The book feels a bit... striped down. Just the most basic storyline, not a lot of exposition or world building, but enough world to make me wish there was more, since it feels very interesting.

I liked the language, which is very metaphorical and descriptive in a grim, dark and dirty sort of way, but the 1920th P.I. vernacular threw me for a loop in the beginning.
The story is quite pulp, full of grim attitude, gore and horror in several ways. The pulp and noir elements aren't usually my style, but I thought they did work well for this story.

I thought the story just keeps giving you more questions than answers, though, and I did not understand it as much as I felt the author expected me to, which I always find frustrating. But it might have to do with the shortness and bareness of the story itself, I'm not sure.

All in all I did enjoy the book, and was very happy with the amount of lovecraftian lore used. Most books are rather vague in borrowing from him, but this one is quite clear and unapologetic about it, which I liked.