Xeita

Well, I feel like it would've been a better story for me if I hadn't remembered the plot from The Ward (unfortunately, an Amber Heard movie). As soon as we learned about Lauren and Olivia, I knew it was the same situation so nothing surprised me after that.

The stream-of-consciousness writing style made this so dense and slow to read and for the first time, I got the audiobook because I just couldn't sit through it anymore. Not only was the slow, detailed narration making it miserable to read through, the audiobook was just barely tolerable on 3 X speed.

The only reason I sat through it was because I hoped I hadn't figured out the final twist. Sure enough, I did. Not only that but man, did it drag. Like, get to the point. I knew all this 100 pages ago.

DNF

Lost is my favorite TV show, so seeing the blurb on this and reading the synopsis got me so excited.
I can't believe how fast I stopped caring about anything.

This reads so overly dense and descriptive, but also extremely young. We're pummeled with characters in the first TINY bit of the book. With the introduction of Xela, I knew this was not for me. It absolutely reeks of man-writing-hot-woman-because-she-is-hot-and-different. It's absolutely insufferable. Talking about her “t!ts” and how she doesn't mind being topless because she's hot and “it's just a body”. Bleh bleh bleh “make sure you bring enough beer for the whole class next time”. Couldn't roll my eyes any farther back into my head.
She's the most pick-me girl I've read in my adult life, and in the most surface-level teen B-movie script way just made me want to never read again.

Between the dense descriptions on every page and the characters that make me have to take an Advil, my disappointment in this book is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

I wouldn't say I hated this, but I had to leave a review saying I sort of saw the twist coming in a sense because of its similarity to Rock Paper Scissors in the sense that (SPOILER FOR THAT BOOK TOO)

*
the flashbacks were not from the perspective we thought they were from. That would've been about a 4-star, but then those SA scenes came out of nowhere and I had to take multiple breaks because of them. I had no clue they were coming and I wasn't ready, nor would I have picked this up to begin with.
The ending sort of made no sense which was also frustrating. I sort of jumped when I turned the page and saw the acknowledgements. (was Ebook so I didn't know how close to the end I was)

I'll admit I convinced myself Amber was going to open her eyes to discover that the hospital was all an elaborate hoax to make her think that's where she was. I let myself down with that one haha.

I'm really glad Alice Feeney seems to have improved since this story.

Firstly, my positive remark is the beginning part with the Carrot ordeal was awesome and made my skin crawl. Unfortunately, the story continued after.

Premise, awesome. Ending, so unbelievably disappointing. The amount of loose ends makes the story feel like it was written on a whim. The dreamcatcher situation turned out to be nothing and was dragged on for almost the entire story. The stolen wedding ring had no purpose for the plot, even after being found it was like “Oh, ok I have it now”...

The First Nations people served no purpose other than repeating how they have no clue how to help, then dying to scare our main characters.

This relentless, murderous monster who skins and mimics its victims seems to have no mercy. Unless you're Faye who just can't remember she almost had a brother. For some reason, this horrible creature is so interested by this (can't relate) that it spares her for some reason. And once she remembers she almost had a brother, she wants the monster to leave her alone now and ... well ... it just does. Just like that.

I thought it was going to reveal that her unborn brother was tied to this creature somehow, or became part of it somehow... But nope. Just a crazy murderous demon who really wants to make Faye relive something crappy for no reason, because he feels like it. It's like it cares about the whole brother thing, which is entirely out of character. The brother thing came completely out of nowhere. It didn't circle back around to make everything tie together, it was just totally random and so I didn't have any feelings towards it.

She remembers her almost-brother, has an OTT reaction and complete mental breakdown and then the monster dusts himself off like his job is done here. This monster cared way more about what Faye was feeling than I did.

A story sprinkled with stupid here and there only to end in a stupid-bomb. I was so excited to read this, too.