jensen1's reviews
427 reviews

Just too long. But a sweet story.

No author? Hardly any citations? Links of Wikipedia images and no mention of famous treaties?

I'm a sucker for a gothic, spooky, haunted house story. This, however, was not that.

The prose and writing felt very juvenile: the cliches like "let out a breath she didn't know she was holding" and "nails digging into her skin" were rampant throughout.

Francine, as a character, lacked depth and was completely unlikable in a boring way - I can handle unlikable characters, but this main character lacked any substance. She is a 50-something woman that is cranky and contrary for no reason. Her consistent need to be rude, hostile, and contrary to everyone made me wonder why Todd, her lodger, would ever think of her as a potential love interest. She has never made a single nice comment to him, barely talked to him, and also has treated him and his coworker with indifference. Why are some literary men written like this? He is so "perfect" that he just knows there's something special about her??? He's willing to fix up her house at no cost because he's got a tiny crush on a woman he's known for a few weeks (at most)? Despite all that, the "nice guy" finds something attractive about Francine- he is either stupid (can't pick up on an obvious disinterest even though she's being blatantly mean to him) or is pushing her boundaries, which is *not* something that most women find romantic in the modern age. Their romance is completely contrived and unnecessary to the plot of the story. It felt so forced, stale, and boring that I wondered why he was kept in the story at all. He also lacks any kind of interesting character aspects - the only thing of note I found was that he asked Francine, who has confessed she's lived with the ghost of her sister and father for decades now if "it's all in her head" and somehow that is just swept under the rug as if him suggesting they're all delusions is not directly against everything she's told him thus far and also suggests that he doesn't believe her. She then says "You don't believe me," and he backtracks and says "Yes, I do!". Excuse me, Todd, asking her if the ghosts of her family members are a figment of her imagination definitely suggests that you have some doubts. Their insta love does not even make it to the epilogue - what was the point? What did he add?

Then there are some plot holes. Why on earth would those little girls stay in the priest hole so long? Wouldn't they yell or try to get out before they suffocated to death?  I know it's said that Francine is scared of the cemetery, but Madeleine didn't seem to be. Why didn't Madeleine ever see the graves of her brother and sister in the backyard? If the mother was so bent on keeping all of this a secret from her two living daughters, why did she even put headstones for Bree and Monty? Francine has lived in the town her whole life and no one ever mentioned to her that she had 5 siblings that either died or disappeared one night? Did Francine's mother somehow convince the entire town that they should keep it a secret for decades? Why is there an asylum that BELONGS TO FRANCINE??? in the backyard and the name of it never appears on Google, ever and all of a sudden becomes a huge answer to the mystery??? 

The list goes on but I just can't. I really just didn't like this one.

 Bukowski just gives try-hard incel and edgelord wannabe that fantasizes about sexual assault, incest, pedophilia, and …. Eggs?

It’s a no from me, dog. 

 Not the story or book for me. It felt gratuitously violent and sexual - at some points it just felt like the whole book was just for shock value. The writing style - "I'm so angry I can feel it in my c***" - is so weird. 

A few good stories but mostly short-winded and wanting. The author seems have had run-ins with Bigfoot, Lake Superior monsters, and ghosts? 

The best part was probably about shipwrecks because it had no conjecture. Gunhilda story was great.