LOOKING GLASS SOUND review

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

💀I read The Last House on Needless Street last fall and looooooved it. I was so excited to read the latest book by this author, but unfortunately I didn’t love this one quite as much.

💀Here’s a summary of the plot:👇
Wilder is spending the summer in a coastal town in Maine and starts writing a novel. The book details his summer and the killer who preyed upon their town.

💀As always, with Catriona Ward’s books it’s best to go into this one with limited info. The twists were so unexpected! Unfortunately, this one was pretty confusing and hard to follow imo. I like being kept on my toes but I had to Google an explanation for the ending just to understand what happened. 🫠 I still plan to read more books by this author but this one was a miss for me unfortunately.

Every time I pick up Catriona Ward novel, I’m reminded of being in a carnival funhouse. Nothing is what it appears to be, there will be twists and turns, and I will be thoroughly entertained. Looking Glass Sound is the latest in Catriona Ward's lineup of what's-going-on-here thrillers. For readers who need all the details to be laid out in a logical, step-wise format, Looking Glass Sound probably isn't for you, but, for those of us who love a little magic, a little fantasy, and are willing to hold on while the story is revealed, it's absolutely perfect.

Catriona Ward is an author I feel that is best enjoyed knowing as little as possible before reading. Looking Glass Sound was the second book I have read from this author and I look forward to experiencing more works in the future. Thank you to Netgalley and Tor for advanced copies of the physical and audiobook for review.

Ward’s writing is typically so beautifully complex but unfortuantrly, this one was maybe a little too intricate for my liking and I was ultimately just confused throughout the entire read.

I enjoy Ward’s truly diabolical stories and I’ve learned with her last work to stick it through as the payoffs are always exceptionally worth it but sadly this one was just not for me.

Please don’t let this deter you as it’s certainly unlike nothing you’ve ever read before and I’ve been seeing some say this is their favourite work of hers yet!

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an ARC of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3.75
Format: Audiobook

Twice I have enjoyed the wild ride that is Catriona Ward's books. She does an excellent job of writing a book that is not exactly what it seems with foreshadowing and easter eggs hidden along the way that aren't exposed until the grand reveal towards the end of the book. I will say for this book specifically, I did not love it as much as "The Last House on Needless Street" but it still was an enjoyable story. The first quarter of this book was fascinating but rather slow. It took me a while to get into the book and I wasn't entirely connected to the characters. The ending was wild and rather confusing but in a good way. The audiobook narrator did an incredible job, but I think this is a book that needs to be read with a physical copy to really absorb all the overlapping timelines and POVs.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-arc of this book!
This book was a thrill ride that its very confusing at the beginning but once it gets going its a rollercoaster of events after another.
It took me a while to get interested in this book. The beginning was slow and it felt like too much build up. I think the story gets better once you are past the 30% mark. After that I couldn't stop listening to it. It was very addictive and creepy. If you enjoyed The writing retreat, and other books like that one this book will be an definite good time.

There was so much about this book that I enjoyed, but by the last third, my brain felt overwhelmed with all of the additional layers of narrative and perspective. I understand what happened linearly, but I felt a bit unmoored nonetheless - and perhaps this was intentional. (The only layer I was partly expecting that did not actually happen was a reveal as Harper as author, strictly due to several British-isms that slipped into Wilder's memoir.) There is certainly a lot to reflect on. Who owns a story, who gets to tell a story, what is the legacy of the storyteller and their subjects, what and who gets remembered? In the end, I found this twisty and complex, rife with writerly coincidences (Of course fake future Wilder is paranoid he's a character in a book, and he didn't even know about his half-brother!), but with a structure that is a great achievement.

I loved this idea of this, but the execution became a bit jumbled for me. There were a few separate plot lines in the book that tried to come together but I felt nothing meshed very well, which is why I can't give it a high rating. I had a good time with this as a fast, casual listen, but writing the review a few weeks later there is nothing that really stands out to me or with stick with me over time.

Thanks to NetGalley for the Advanced Copy of the audiobook. 3/5 stars.

Looking Glass Sound commands your full attention. This intensely unsettling literary horror novel combines coming of age, serial killer, a little bit of witchcraft, and a lot of complex emotional trauma into the subgenres of both metaphysical and psychological horror. Ward will force you to question the reliability of every character, the blurred lines between truth and fiction, and whether or not memories are real or imagined.

I listened to the audiobook at different points in the book and enjoyed the narration by both narrators. However, the mind-bending complexity of this dark tale reads better in print. I often reread scenes or flags sections I *thought* would be essential to reread later in the story. I fully support the audiobook but caution that you should not leave your physical or electronic copy far behind for this clever tale.

This was disappointing. After enjoying her other book 'House on Needless Street' I was really looking forward to this one, but unfortunately it just missed the mark for me. I wasn't particularly invested in any of the characters and found them all to be one dimensional and clunky, they each irritated me for different reasons and I found the dialogue to be pretty bad. Their exchanges were all weird, I'm not sure who Catriona Ward thinks actually talks like them but it was too slow and disjointed. I'm bummed bc I very much wanted to like this one. 3 stars is being very generous.

This was a decent listen on audiobook. It wasn’t my usual taste but I do think that for fans of the author, they will enjoy reading this.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for this ARC!!
This book was so much fun to listen to, I flew through it in one day!

Atmospheric, moody, and reflective. This mystery keeps you thinking about the interaction of the past and the present and how secrets come back to haunt you.

Review of Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

Now this is the Catriona Ward I have come to know and love. I DNF’ed her last book Little Eve and so I was a little apprehensive going into this one. But the last house on needless Street is one of my favorite books ever so I will always give her another chance. Thankfully, this time I was not let down. I absolutely loved this book. I recommend a combination of reading a physical copy and the audiobook if you can do both. Her books definitely are intricate with lots of characters and timelines so it’s best if you can read along, but the audio also cannot be beat. I was engrossed in this one immediately and loved it all the way to the end. The only words that ever come to mind with her are unique and clever. Definitely give this one a try.

Synopsis:

It is the story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay, and the blood-stained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay. And how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades, forever shaping their lives.

But the more Wilder writes, the less he trusts himself and his memory. He starts to see things that can’t be real – notes hidden in the cabin, from an old friend now dead; a woman with dark hair drowning in the icy waters below, calling for help; entire chapters he doesn’t recall typing, appearing overnight. Who, or what, is haunting Wilder?

No longer able to trust his own eyes, Wilder begins to fear that this will not only be his last book, but the last thing he ever does.

Audiobook Review
Looking Glass Sound
Catriona Ward
Published: August 2023
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Rating: ???

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the audiobook in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My thoughts: Umm...where to begin with this one? I will start off with some honesty first and say I dnf'd this book about 35-40% of the way through.
Honestly there were multiple reasons. For one, it was all over the place. There was just so much going on, I didn't know what to focus on. The sexuality bit in this book was a bit much for me, too. The LGBTQ books with hard focus on sex is not something I enjoy reading, so that really kind of made it less enjoyable for me, too. Overall I found myself confused and dare I say bored. I ended up googling the ending and was somehow more confused. Truthfully I was bummed because I had loved The Last House on Needless Street so much.

#qotd: Did you read this? What were your thoughts? OR tell me what you've been watching on TV lately.

#review #bookreview #audiobook #netgalley #lookingglasssound #arc #arcreview #nowavailable #notforme #bummed #qotd #aotd #Thursday #thursdaythriller #feature #backlogreview #catchingup #picsart #fallfeels #leaves

I wanted to like this book but it wasn't for me. First of all, I managed to get through it only because it was on audio. I feel like so much was going on but at the same time nothing was actually happening. The back and forth between timelines threw me off. The characters were not likable at all, especially the MMC, Wilder. I finished the book and I am still utterly confused. This one was so hard to get into and follow along. Again, it wasn't for me.

I want to thank Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and the author for this ALC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was not able to listen to this one before it expired. Once i have read the book I will return to update my review.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I tried to become interested in the characters but they were inherently unlikable. The beginning seemed to drag through the mendacity of their lives and the slight drama. It picked up. And then it went completely off the rails and became something of a mess. Weirdly, I was kind of more interested in the story and trying to follow it once this happened. The entire thing felt familiar, too. I'm left with the feeling that I have read this all before.

The narration of this one was great, but I don't think it's the best on audio. It's a really slow burn and jumps around in time. It was a bit hard for me to follow for those reasons. The narrator was great though and the story was fine. But just not the best for audio, in my opinion.

This is another one of those books that I think that I would have preferred to read in a physical form, rather than listen to audio. There’s just so many switches in timelines, viewpoints, and things I would want to go back and check and make a connection. Over all it is a good book, it just has a complicated storyline where things start making sense the farther into the book you go. It is an inceptionesque book, with murder and secrets and even a bit of romance all wrapped up in one.

In a cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow has begun the last book he will ever write.

It is the story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay, and the blood-stained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay. And how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades, forever shaping their lives.

But the more Wilder writes, the less he trusts himself and his memory. He starts to see things that can’t be real – notes hidden in the cabin, from an old friend now dead; a woman with dark hair drowning in the icy waters below, calling for help; entire chapters he doesn’t recall typing, appearing overnight. Who, or what, is haunting Wilder?

No longer able to trust his own eyes, Wilder begins to fear that this will not only be his last book, but the last thing he ever does.