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A review by rakoerose
Ice Cold by Andrea Maria Schenkel
3.0
The Reading Rush 2020: read a book completely outside of your house ☑
An intriguing mystery full of gruesome details and horrifying end results.
”Keep on looking at yourself in the mirror like that and one day the Devil himself will look back at you.”
“How can the Devil look back at me out of the mirror?” Kathie asked.
I actually really enjoyed the nonlinearity of this story! It’s told through a series of eyewitness accounts, interview transcripts, and long-form scenes following Kathie, the protagonist. It made the mystery more engaging with the constant worry about which of these men could be the killer. It really plays on depicting a woman’s worst nightmare of a stalker with malicious intent. I think this book scared me more than it would a man reading it, to be honest. Because stuff like this (though not as extreme) is still a potential reality.
My one major complaint with this novel is its lack of content warnings. I, luckily, don’t have much issue but I still would have appreciated a page labelling what would be depicted. So, for anyone looking to read this, content warnings for physical abuse, sexual assault, rape, murder (highly detailed), body horror, the description of animal slaughter, and probably a few other things I’m forgetting. It’s definitely more of a shocking book than a thriller and some might say it was even gratuitously violent. However I know some people seek out that kind of literature so! That’s that. Fair warning.
The ending, in my opinion, felt a little lackluster. It just didn’t feel like it fit fully with the intense mystery of the main portion of this story. I found myself closing the book with a bittersweet “I don’t know what else I expected” feeling.
This isn’t all to say I thought this book was bad, I still enjoyed the mystery and following the unique style. I’d be willing to read something by Schenkel again at some point! For the length this is, if you’re interested, I’d still recommend it to you because German translated works are fascinating!
An intriguing mystery full of gruesome details and horrifying end results.
”Keep on looking at yourself in the mirror like that and one day the Devil himself will look back at you.”
“How can the Devil look back at me out of the mirror?” Kathie asked.
I actually really enjoyed the nonlinearity of this story! It’s told through a series of eyewitness accounts, interview transcripts, and long-form scenes following Kathie, the protagonist. It made the mystery more engaging with the constant worry about which of these men could be the killer. It really plays on depicting a woman’s worst nightmare of a stalker with malicious intent. I think this book scared me more than it would a man reading it, to be honest. Because stuff like this (though not as extreme) is still a potential reality.
My one major complaint with this novel is its lack of content warnings. I, luckily, don’t have much issue but I still would have appreciated a page labelling what would be depicted. So, for anyone looking to read this, content warnings for physical abuse, sexual assault, rape, murder (highly detailed), body horror, the description of animal slaughter, and probably a few other things I’m forgetting. It’s definitely more of a shocking book than a thriller and some might say it was even gratuitously violent. However I know some people seek out that kind of literature so! That’s that. Fair warning.
The ending, in my opinion, felt a little lackluster. It just didn’t feel like it fit fully with the intense mystery of the main portion of this story. I found myself closing the book with a bittersweet “I don’t know what else I expected” feeling.
This isn’t all to say I thought this book was bad, I still enjoyed the mystery and following the unique style. I’d be willing to read something by Schenkel again at some point! For the length this is, if you’re interested, I’d still recommend it to you because German translated works are fascinating!