The House at the End of the World

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In retreat from a devastating loss and crushing injustice, Katie lives alone in a fortresslike stone house on Jacob’s Ladder island. Some people said they loved it, that it was the best thing since sliced lemon cake, and then rated it as a two.

The endings feel like he was pressed for time and just had to throw something down so he could turn it in. This story is drenched with way too much description, every little thing is over explained repeatedly and unnecessarily, to the point where it feels like he thinks his readers are idiots. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs. Ryan confides in her that he accidentally injured Carrie-Anne by allowing her to fall from a swing when they were little; he was supposed to be watching her while their parents were getting high on drugs.Furthermore, suspense and tension was not existent and I couldn't care less about the main character. Sabrina describes how she and the other visitors were led by their visions and compulsions to find each other online, execute details of their plan such as creating their weapons, and to continue forward when they wanted to resist.

Now, I don’t like to let an author’s politics influence how I view a book because I don’t want to be lumped in with the idiots who cry about woke indoctrination because there was a non straight, non white character in a novel. The two main scientists in this story are brilliant and fixated on pursuing discoveries that will destroy humanity. Quiet honestly, at times, it felt like I was reading just another unhinged twitter thread about Jewish lasers or COVID conspiracies or about how scientists are bad and evil (I'm scientists myself) from very peculiar people living in the US. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Ryan catches up to her before she can reach the couple but accidentally kills her while trying to hide her.And she was the central character in If It Bleeds, a novella in the 2020 collection of the same name. The extended edition increased the length of certain scenes in the final cut by a few seconds and the amount of violence, blood, and gore was increased by a small amount. The reasons become apparent as the narrative flows which normally happens at the start with many of his stories.