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frances_frances's reviews
289 reviews
The Butcher and the Wren by Alaina Urquhart
1.0
I'm a longtime listener of Morbid and truly enjoy listening to Ash and Alaina's banter and analyses. On the podcast, Alaina is a great storyteller. Unfortunately this doesn't carry over to written fiction.
Much of the book reads like serial killer fanfic. Rather than enriching the story, the frequent mentions of real life killers and their MO's felt weirdly indulgent, like Urquhart just wanted to showcase her knowledge of true crime.
While there was a lot of plot, there was little depth or time to let things land. The descriptions of New Orleans throughout the book were repetitive and the constant mentions of notable NOLA features seemed to come straight from a travel guide. I've never been to the city myself, but it's clear how surface-level Urquhart's knowledge of the area is.
Jeremy's chapters are somewhat compelling, but overall the characters were extremely underdeveloped (especially Wren!) and it was difficult to care about any of them. Their motivations were flimsy and they were very two-dimensional.
The ending allows for a sequel but again, nothing about the characters or story actually left me wanting to hear more.
Much of the book reads like serial killer fanfic. Rather than enriching the story, the frequent mentions of real life killers and their MO's felt weirdly indulgent, like Urquhart just wanted to showcase her knowledge of true crime.
While there was a lot of plot, there was little depth or time to let things land. The descriptions of New Orleans throughout the book were repetitive and the constant mentions of notable NOLA features seemed to come straight from a travel guide. I've never been to the city myself, but it's clear how surface-level Urquhart's knowledge of the area is.
Jeremy's chapters are somewhat compelling, but overall the characters were extremely underdeveloped (especially Wren!) and it was difficult to care about any of them. Their motivations were flimsy and they were very two-dimensional.
The ending allows for a sequel but again, nothing about the characters or story actually left me wanting to hear more.