"DNf 35%

If you love a Mary sue MC who cries all the time. Has no skills. Is a push over. And is absolutely useless. Then this is the book for you! Spend your time reading about someone who is absolutely worthless and feel great about yourself because your life isn’t as pathetic as his 👍"

"I was surprised to find I had gotten 25% of the way through this book before I stopped. I was tempted to go back and re-listen to that 25% just so I could note every stupid thing that happens. I’m pretty certain the author never goes more than 5 pages without something incredibly moronic happening. Still, this book isn’t worth that kind of effort so I’ll just go with what I remember:

First, the author tells the story disjointedly, with flashbacks occurring really just whenever. Perhaps this works better in the written work with some sort of visual cue but in the audio version this was very badly done. At least twice I was uncertain whether the MC was dreaming or having a flashback.

So, MC is transferred to a new world for the third time- the first two worlds are covered in flash backs. If memory serves, the MC learned hunting and living off the land as important skills to someone shunted from world to world, but, instead of using such skills and looking for humans he can safely approach and speak with, the MC marches into the first city he sees. Note that the MC on the other worlds was given a quest to complete so he figures the same will be true here and that the quest is in the city. However, the MC doesn’t really want to complete any quests, having become disillusioned. IN SPITE OF THIS THE MC JUST MARCHES RIGHT INTO THE CITY???

The first person the MC speaks to in the city is a thief in cahoots with an inn owner. MC falls for this scam and ends up fighting with the thief and the inn owner. When the city guard shows the MC DOESN’T EVEN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN and just meekly goes to jail. In jail the MC just sits and waits in spite of having the ability to break out. (The MC does exercise and experiment with magic while in jail but, since he could have done that anywhere it doesn’t count.) Eventually a young girl is brought into jail and the MC decides to break out. MC does this by breaking his lock with magic. Does the MC break the lock when just the jailer is around? No. He waits for a group of guards to be in the jail. Does he break the lock in advance so he can jump out and surprise the guards? No. He waits for the guards to be standing outside of his cell watching him. Good thing these guards are completely incompetent or they would have just immediately killed the MC (or, at the least, interrupted the MC’s magic).

In spite of his glaring stupidity the MC kills one guard and questions the other. DOES THE MC ASK HOW MANY GUARDS ARE IN THE JAIL? NO. Frankly I don’t remember what the MC asked because I was so shocked at the author MISSING THE ONLY QUESTION THAT REALLY MATTERED! MC and woman head to guard room where MC encounters 5 guards playing cards. Does the MC immediately attack? No. HE STEPS INTO THE ROOM AND LOOKS AT THE GUARDS UNTIL THEY DECIDE TO MOVE. Worse, does the MC leave the woman in the hallway? No. As a result one of the guards gets to a crossbow, loads it and fires resulting in the MC having to dive in front of the bolt to protect the woman. This one scene is soooooooo stupid I lack the words to adequately describe my disgust. But wait, it unbelievably gets worse.

After killing 7 guards the MC and woman end up at the woman’s home on the theory that she was taken as a part of an off-the-books extortion scheme by the now dead guards; therefore no one other than the dead guards would know she was even in the jail. The stupidity of this is astounding since there was a jailer who is just forgotten about. How does this jailer not know what is going on??? Further the reader is never told the jailer was one of the 7 dead. I really think the author just forgot about him. And the stupidity of just assuming no one else knows is astounding. Other city guards would likely know even if only by rumor. What about the higher ups the crooked guards have to bribe to get away with extortion?

I could keep going, as all it would take is one word in the right ear for the crooked guards to end up in jail themselves if they don’t have higher ups protecting them. At the end of the day this MC was too stupid to live except that the bad guys were, apparently, even more stupid."

"I think people like to describe books like this as "slow burn." It took over one-third of the book to get to the cultivation, (inciting incident?). There was a lot of exposition. Long stretches felt forced �� the plot was on rails.

I liked the protagonist and found him to be sympathetic. However, most of the other characters are shallow. There's little originality to be found in the world-building. It's a cultivation story set in a European mold... 'nough said.

Things pick up in the final third. In fact, it was good enough to make me want to continue reading. Realistically, I'll probably have forgotten that positive feeling by the time Book Two is published."

"TW/CW: Language, fighting, toxic family relationships, dementia, death of loved one, grieving, depression, anxiety, death of sibling, bullying, family drama, blood, gory scenes

SPOILERS
About the book:
Sixteen-year-old Nate Campbell grew up in the shadow of Murder Road �� a street cursed by the vengeful spirit of the Hiding Boy.

Every few years, for nearly six decades, a different house on that street has been the scene of a tragedy.Nate and his family move to a new town as they try to outrun the curse once and for all. But, when he is pulled into his new friends�� urban legend club, new ghost stories merge with old until there is nowhere left to run.
Release Date: August 27th, 2024
Genre: Horror
Pages: 320
Rating: �� �� ��

What I Liked:
1. The plot sounded creepy
2. Short chapters
3. Reads fast

What I Didn't Like:
1. Read too YA
2. Characters feel repetitive
3. Teenage romance
4. Not horror - more mystery feeling

Overall Thoughts:
{{Disclaimer: I write my review as I read}}

Calling the road Murder Road remind me of a book called Murder Road by Simone St. James, which also talks about a road of death.

I wish the teenagers were more interesting. So far it feels like Nate is coming off very one dimensional, Hazel just keeps calling the boy she left behind, and Roman is fighting for money.

If Nate knows that his urban legend is real why would he want to risk making another urban legend real? Wouldn't he want to not be anywhere near another one?

Did you know that Nates grandmother died? Yeah, you'll only hear about it every chapter and almost every 5 pages.

They all go to Murder Road and in the boys house (not sure if this house has been vacant since the 60s the town hasn't knocked it down) they are locked away from Nate, we suddenly change character pov to Max's. Why?? This is weird. Then Seb & Tyler's.

They are lost in this haunted house and Seb just died but suddenly in the middle of all of this we have Tyler over here questioning his life decisions and whether he should take a school scholarship. What???

The house turns into this 1408 Stephen King ghost thing where their spirts from their pasts and worries of their lives kill(try) to them off.

Tyler and Max survive. The police even talk about how the town should knock down the 5 houses and yeah why aren't they?? How is the town doing this since they've had so many people killed at these places.

So we now know that Roman is responsible for the death of 5 bodies and feeding the house people just because Roman interrupted the curse to knock the door down saving the other kids (I guess).

Oh they killed Hazel's boyfriend in the house.

I'm confused why they wouldn't approach the town about knocking the houses down to see if it'll stop the curse they have, but they don't even try that path they just jump into leading people to the houses.

In theory then since Roman broke up the houses killing those people that broke in and broke the door down what did that mean that little girl that saved Max and Tyler but also be haunted and have to lure people to houses? She interrupted the natural order of things.

So it's 6 months later and they are knocking the houses down starting with the one where Seb died in. Magically Nate and his family is able to just blend into this huge crowd and you're going to tell me not one person recognizes any of them. Like how is that even possible. They grew up in this town and no one recognizes them especially since Max had put out a podcast saying they were on the lookout for them and they had disappeared but they just get in watch the house get knocked down and sneak out.

Final Thoughts:
This book reminded me of The Craft. That a new girl that had the final power showed up and gave the existing group the power they were missing. Nate is that character that shows up to make the urban legends come alive.

It's never explained how the urban legends came true when they were around Nate. It's never explained and kind of seemed an after thought to a storyline that was pretty massive.

I wanted to like this story but it all just felt very meh to me. The characters weren't interesting and at times could come off annoying. The tone of the book was too YA. There was the twist of Nate framing the group, but it seemed so out of character to the person we had been following around and reading his thoughts that suddenly he'd set his friends up to be murdered.

In the end though I don't know if I'll remember much from this book. Wasn't terrible but also wasn't very memorable.

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Thanks to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for the ebook & Spotify Books for the audiobook. All thoughts and opinions are my own. "