Review: Eight Lives

Eight Lives by Susan Hurley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Some interesting twists towards the end, but it just took way too long to get there, with lots of pointless details on the way.

Plot: A talented doctor is dead, and now a bunch of randoms will tell of their involvement.

So we have multiple perspectives - the best friend, the colleague, the sister, the girlfriend, the lawyer - and they all take a nice long time to talk about themselves before you get to any of the interesting stuff. I'm sure the intention was to round out each character, but it seemed a bit unnecessary, since their part in David's story was enough to show their character on its own. I found myself skimming some of the chunky paragraphs of superfluous detail because they really bogged the story down.

Added to that, the story implies there's a mystery to solve but doesn't really give a lot of detail as to what and why we need to solve it. We know a doctor is dead. We are told each character was involved somehow. But it doesn't seem to present much of a mystery beyond what the characters aren't saying. I found it not only frustrating but confusing. It took me over half the book to work out what the point was, and even then there wasn't really a gripping argument.

Aside from the extra, pointless information, the language works a little too hard to be authentic; often lapsing into stereotypes and relying on other languages to display multiculturalism. For example, any time Ma talks we get the Vietnamese first, with the English translation in the next sentence. I understand why, but after the first few uses it seems pointless - the story has already conveyed that Ma speaks Vietnamese so adding every one of her sentences untranslated seems a waste of space. The same happened with Rosa and Italian.

Then we get Foxy, who says Aussie-isms like 'strewth!' but also British things like 'ghastly'. It seemed mis-matched to me and bothered me no end.

It's a medical thing, so there's lots of jargon and while it does get broken down into layman's terms, there's so much of it that again, it slows the story down. I feel like this is another case of the author wanting to include every detail they know, rather than just what's pertinent to the story.

Aside from all these complaints, though, by the last third of the book I was indeed hooked and needing to understand what the hell was happening. There are so many layered admissions and conclusions that it's impossible to know the real answers until the last chapter. It does indeed get addictive.

So it's slow and includes a lot of pointless detail, but if you hang in there it does present some interesting twists to make it feel like the book was indeed worth your time.

Fans of medical crime/drama might enjoy this one, but patience is the key here.

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Review: Symbiote

Symbiote by Michael Nayak
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Narrated by Paul Bellantoni
Presented by Dreamscape Media

Big Venom fan here, so you call your book Symbiote and I'm gonna pay attention!

There's a virus spreading through Antarctica, and it's infecting people with murderous rage and inhuman strength.

The setup here was perfect - remote location with just enough characters that you know a decent number of them are going to die horribly. The threat of the cold lurking behind all the chaos the virus causes, and character dynamics, add some interesting plot points.

I really enjoyed the first half of the book. The suspense was meted out well and the story moved at a decent pace. We get a few different viewpoints to keep things interesting, and there are a lot of Venom-esque interjections throughout to add an extra creep factor.

I'm very curious as to how this story looks on the page, because the narrator did a brilliant job of defining those crazy symbiote asides and I wonder if it would translate as well on the physical page or if all the parentheses would drive me mad. It feels very much like a Marvel Venom story, without the 'protect the innocents' bit to make the symbiote likeable. I love Venom, so I enjoyed it a lot, but it does also feel a little too close to ripping off the character.

Towards the second half of the book, it was starting to feel like things should have already wrapped up and so it began to drag. I found my thoughts drifting a bit and even though there were still some really cool moments, ultimately I was waiting for it to finish.

The narrator had his work cut out for him with all the different voices and possessions and things and did an absolutely brilliant job of it. Some of the characters sounded a bit the same, but the different tones he used to convey the interjections and things was perfect. I'd happily trust this narrator again.

On the whole, it was an enjoyable read that was a steady 4-star until the last third or so of the book.

I'd recommend this one for horror fans and Venom fans alike.

With thanks to NetGalley for an audio ARC

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