A review by sarah984
Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

The idea of this book was good - sort of a Titanic meets Event Horizon thing where the main characters find a ghost ship that messes with their perceptions - but the execution did not work for me. The MC's specific non ghost ship related mental health problems were all over the place, but not in a way that was interesting or compelling. The dual timeline thing that only happens for like half the book did not work. The pacing was so slow until about the 70% mark. Most of the actually interesting things happen off screen. The thing that is causing the problem is immediately obvious but no one figures it out. The characters are very vague stereotypes and the romance is deeply stupid. For some reason the same things that were just shown are reiterated over and over like you might not notice (like the character will see a gold faucet and be like "wow! Ostentatious displays of wealth bad!" every single time). I did like the way they solved the problem at the end though.

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