the dead of winter by stuart macbride

i received a copy of the dead of winter from penguin nz in exchange for an honest review.

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the dead of winter review
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the dead of winter review

do you ever read a book and realise it just wasn’t for you?

that’s how i felt after reading the dead of winter.

sure, i love a good mystery/thriller. yes, the summary sounded good. this sounded like the perfect book for me.

unfortunately, i struggled with this one so much. i really wanted to dnf it multiple times (but i was determined to finish it).

pretty much the only thing i enjoyed about this book was how much gore there was. while it wasn’t a lot, the murders went into a lot of detail that other authors would’ve left out. i loved it. i just wished there was a few more dead bodies so i could’ve enjoyed the book a little more.

so, with that concluding the only thing i liked about this book, here’s what i disliked:

firstly, the plot had too many “boring bits”. the pacing was terribly slow, which didn’t help things. the middle was intolerable. it felt like a slog of irrelevant information and boring dialogue.

the characters were particularly dreadful. i disliked everyone (and liked no one). i had a very large hatred for our main character “reekie”. while other reviews warned of the authors humour, no one warned me for the childish bullying that the main male character does towards his female coworker. (simply put, her name is victoria, but he constantly calls her “bigtoria” behind her back and to her face, despite her saying she doesn’t like it). reekie thinks he’s some hot shit, constantly making sexual comments towards other female characters (some reply in the same manor and others look unpleased with his behaviour, which results in him thinking some not very nice things about them). i particularly disliked when he complained that he’s better than his female coworker, while never actually showing any competency at work???

in short, the mmc is a complete twat.

i just really hated the characters. all of them.

and my last thing to note was the language used in this book. there was a lot of “fudge” and “sodding”. while this might work in other books, it felt stupid and childish in this book. (i mean, the detail to these gruesome murders was outstanding but the need to police language that people use everyday was a bit weird).

unfortunately, this is the first book i’ve read by stuart macbride. i disliked i so much that i’m never going to read another book by this author again. i wish i had more positive things to say about this book, but it was a struggle to actually finish it.