kkenna7's reviews
253 reviews

Might pick this up again in print format. The narrator made the fmc sound like a petulant whiny baby child and I can’t fuck with it at all

**Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ELC. All opinions are my own.**

I struggled a little bit with this one, if I'm honest. The pacing was off for me, and I found myself struggling to want to go back to it, even as an audiobook, which is usually a much quicker read for me. While there was nothing wrong with the narrator, I didn't love her for this particular tone of book. It didn't seem to match what was supposed to be a more tense affair. Personally, I felt like a lot of the plot wasn't clicking for me. I kept thinking "why aren't we doing independent research instead of just talking to the same three people over and over again?" It just didn't grab me the way I hope for in a thriller/horror scenario. I'd also seen the plot twist coming from a mile away and that also had me un-immersed for a long time. 

What I did enjoy was the relationship building between Alice and Mina. That felt real and natural, the way I'd expect a child psychologist to interact with a child. I appreciated Fern and her entire character. I would have loved to spend more time in her world.

I say all of this to say that this book is absolutely for *someone.* There are good bones here, it's got a lot of the telltale signs of books that I would (and have) recommended to patrons at work ten times over. It's just not entirely for me, and that's okay.

I had to sleep on this one before reviewing and I'm still not entirely sure how to go about it. The writing was, obviously, incredible. The audio, read by Hanif, was amazing as expected. If I'm being 100% honest (and it'd be off-brand of me not to), my rating might be more of a 3.5/3.75 out of 5, personally. While I love so much of this, there were times in the middle where I felt like I was getting lost? It's true that you don't have to know about or even care about basketball to read/enjoy this, but for me personally, using a metaphor of something that I have no personal connection to makes for a bigger hurdle for me and I struggled a tiny bit at the end of the day. Still wonderful, still worth the time spent, etc. I think I'm mostly disappointed in myself for not loving it as much as I wanted to lmao.

This is my first by Hanif and it feels like the right place to start. I'm glad I chose to do it audibly. Hearing it straight from Abdurraqib's mouth made it so much more special. Essay collections, short stories, anthologies, etc. are all very hit-or-miss for me (usually more miss, if I'm being honest). I don't usually gravitate toward this format of writing, I often require a longer form to be immersed. That being said, every single one of these essays was a banger for me. There's not a moment in time during this book where I felt like the point was missed. 

Reviewing nonfiction is so hard for me, but I loved this. Just know that.