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This book had promise but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me.

Sadie finally leaves her abusive finance, fleeing with her three year old daughter to an interview at an old hotel as a housekeeper. She keeps a permanent residence there and weird things start happening.
While the story had a good foundation for a haunting, it took a turn to green things that I just couldn’t keep a straight face with while reading.

I didn’t connect with any of the characters. And while I sympathize with Sadie’s struggles and what she’s been through, it was very repetitive.

But if you like monsters and creepy hotels this book is definitely for you!

Thanks for the read!

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Let's get this out of the way before I say more. This book is what I would call a creature-feature, one of my favorite horror sub-genres. But the creatures in this book are GREEN people! Did this cover designer even read the book? Moving on.

Sadie and her three-year-old daughter, Izzy, are running away from Sadie's abusive fiancé and land in a small town on Lake Erie, Ohio. Sadie interviews and get a job at a historic hotel, L'Arpin, which works out well because the manager/owner allows Sadie to live there as well. Soon after her arrival she begins to hear strange water sounds coming from the hallways and a trail of water left behind. In addition, people are coming up missing and no one at the hotel seems to care. The man who runs the power plant next door keeps accusing the hotel employees of sabotaging his building and the old lady, Gertie, who has lived at the hotel for what seems like forever keeps finding more and more reasons to be around Izzy.

This book started out kind of slow. I was about 40% in when it eventually picked up. It wasn't that I ever thought about DNF'ing, but I just found myself putting it aside and not in any real hurry to pick it back up. However, once I reached the last 30%, I couldn't put the book down. I also found the setting and some of the characters pretty creepy, even though Sadie was annoying most of the time. That being said, it is also clear she is a victim of domestic violence, and the past abuse was the root of many of her actions and poor decisions, so I completely get it. I found the ending somewhat over-the-top but it was dramatic and fit the creature-feature Modis Operandi.

Overall, The Cut was exactly what I expected, except for the red creatures. It wasn't perfect but it ended up being fun and sometimes that's all you need from your horror. If you are even slightly curious about this one, I recommend you give it a try.

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Unfortunately this was very very repetitive and became boring. It had so much promise. But ultimately it wasn't for me. Thank you for the copy!

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2.5 / 5 stars rounded up.

In The Cut, a single mother escapes from an abusive husband and finds a live-in job at a hotel that increasingly reveals that it and all the people around it are hiding something.

This story really had all the elements of some of my favorite horror stories.. The Shining’s haunted hotel, The Mist’s mutated monsters… but it just didn’t really come together.
A lot was really way too repetitive among the main character’s inner monologue. It was understandable why she would be in a panicked state as a single mother running away from an abusive ex, but I swear she had the exact thought “I need to get out of here as soon as I can” at least 20 times throughout the book, as well as a lot of other sentiments that were repeated over and over again.
I also didn’t really understand what drove Sadie to try to get to the bottom of things. After the coworker disappeared, it made a little more sense, but especially as a single mother trying to protect her daughters, it was weird to me the way she was barreling through at the beginning demanding to see the security tapes, etc.

Overall, the story had a lot of promising aspects, and there were parts where I didn’t want to put it down, but it did drag especially at the end, and I just feel like this could have been a lot more captivating than it was.

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Man, this had so much promise and I love a creature feature horror book, but this just wasn't it for me. It got really repetitive and overall became boring. ending up skimming to the end and I'm left feeling unsatisfied

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🐙🏨🗝The Cut🗝🏨🐙

First of all, my girsl Sadie and Izzy can't catch a damn break!

After running from a domestic situation and thinking they find a safe place to live and work Sadie and Izzy find themselves at The L'Arpin Hotel, where there's an increasingly amount of red flags being thrown around, nothing is more terrifying than finding themselves at the grasp of Sam, Sadie's ex. Missing people, weird creatures, mysterious staff, adorable nosey and helpful neighbors, that's what awaits you at L'Arpin, once you check in, who knows if you'll check out.

I know the description says horror, but this is 75% thriller/mystery and 25% horror as well as a slow start. So keep that in mind if you pick it up.

I overall did enjoy this book and the way of writting and do recommend it. It was a little bit predictable at times BUT I am a sucker for guessing the plot so it might not be easy for you.

I want to thank NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this e-book ARC!

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This horror book started off so promising!!! I flew through the first 70 pages so quick and I was so invested. It had all the creepy atmosphere, I love the haunted hotel atmosphere, I love that we’re following a single mother who is fleeing from an abusive situation and she’s also pregnant herself with another child on the way. She’s doing whatever she can to protect her little girl, and getting a job at this hotel is all she can do right now.

I loved the set up of this book, it was reminding me of some of my favorite horror books like Lock Every Door and Nestlings.. The owner of the hotel starts acting shady, strange occurrences happen, the residents who live at the hotel are acting weird, and she keeps hearing noises in the hotel, like slurping sound and splashing sounds coming from the tubs. It had great creepy vibes~

But this book got very repetitive in a lot of ways. The way she kept calling her daughter “stinker” all the time a was very annoying. And a lot of the conversations in this book felt so repetitive. I thought the first 50% was so intriguing but then the second half of the book got sooooo cheesy. The ideas in this book were cool, but the execution was not well done at all, and I found myself losing interest and skimming a lot in the end. All the potential was there for this book to be great, but it really lost me in the second half, which is such a bummer!!

Thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

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This book was far too cerebral to be a thriller or horror that could be picked up forafew hours of fun reading. Trying to follow the timeline began to feel like a chore.

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3.5 Stars

This book would probably make a pretty cool movie/mini series. I really enjoyed the creepy hotel vibes and all of the reveals. I generally really like books that center around water. This also has a hotel that has some shady stuff going on. I thought the premise was really intriguing, and for the most part this was really well done. I do feel like I had read at least one other book with a similar premise, and I liked that one a tiny bit more. I did not love the ending, and there were a few places that I felt were kind of slow. Overall though this was a fun read. This would be great to read on vacation. It's a pretty easy read with some good reveals.

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Thank you, C. J. Dotson NetGalley for the ARC. I leave this review voluntarily and happily. Also, thank you publishers for your hard work!

I'll admit this book took me a long time to read. The book started off slow, and it just didn't keep my interest. The characters are very much likable, and you certainly want to give a few words and a stink eye to others. There are mentions of past abuse in this book, dealings with the abuse, and it's just so sad. There is grief, loss, and depression. The monster is icky and makes your skin crawl. It certainly made me think at many times what it is? Is it a sea monster? Tentacle monster.... a parasite!? But even with all this happening, i had a hard time keeping interest in it.

After escaping her abusive ex-husband, Sadie is doing everything she can to provide for her child. Living in a hotel and being a housekeeper, she has been noticing strange things afoot. Every time she mentions it, the man in charge just shrugs it off or finds ways to explain it away. There is something dark and dangerous here... but what? Sadie must keep both her child and unborn child safe. Will she make it?

Like I said before, I just had the hardest time keeping interested in this book. It might just be how slow it was.

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as visceral and sharp as that gorgeous cover, dotson offers a thrilling story that’ll keep any horror lover glued to the page. may be a little slow for some readers, but once it gets going, it gets GOING, unrelentless in every page in the way only good horror can be.

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I enjoyed the book it was a fun read, as far as it goes for a horror book.
But the book had a bit too much pages not really adding anything and making Sadie look painfully slow to understand who's behind it all and she never even questions that one person so it was hard not to see how she was never under questions.
About Izzy, i think its nice she's so present because its rare to see a child actually following in the plot but she felt like a hindrance even to the reader at some point and the vocab mistake felt a little forced especially "opay" i dont think i've ever heard a child mixing k and p
Overall i liked it, it was entertained but plot details were really weak and Sadie should have been a little more developed and less focus on Izzy

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The Cut by C.J. Dotson is Margaret Qualley's Maid intermingled with supernatural lore and strange happenings in a quiet lakefront hotel.

Fleeing from an abusive ex with toddler Izzy in tow, our protagonist stumbles upon the L'Arpin Hotel, a dated lodging off the bank of a mysterious lake. The conditions are subpar, but through a special arrangement with the stiff hotel manager Mr. Drye, she assumes the position of a housekeeper and simultaneous resident of the musty accommodation. Only, L'Arpin is not the sleepy hotel she initially imagined...

The first 50 pages of this flew by! I loved the set up and really felt for our main character, who was balancing the desperation of resituating her life in unideal circumstances, learning where and where not to lean on strangers for help, and the general atmosphere of the lake and hotel. Her frustration and fatigue felt very real.

Unfortunately, after those initial pages, it felt like the pacing was thrown off. New details were incorporated in ways that I didn't find entirely clear, and many of the characters were flat or overly obvious in their motivations. It was clear that something sinister was happening, but didn't have enough support from the prose or plot points to truly build suspense.

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Um, this was fine. The main character's constant on-the-lookout paranoia put me on edge pretty continuously and effectively. Also, it was really slow and eery in the beginning. But once the plot "revealed" itself, I was relatively underwhelmed. I was not as impacted by the ending as I wanted to be, and it was just a bit too ridiculous for my tastes. The child in this story was far too annoying (coming from someone with an annoying toddler myself), and I did not find the parent/child relationship very convincing. The overuse of the nickname "stinker" was wearing on me by the 5th chapter.

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2.75 /5

While there were some things about this book I enjoyed, I couldn't help but feel it missed the mark throughout. It could just be a personal preference thing ... It's just that some things were nailed so perfectly, so you can tell the talents are there ... But, I don't know ...
It's like ... There's all the freshest, most high grade ingredients ... But, all adding them together seems to throw one thing off, then you start noticing how every aspect seems slightly off.
And the ending was just ... not great, IMO.
Like I said, personal preference and all that. I can picture many getting a lot of enjoyment from it, so I recommend checking it out. There IS some good stuff here ... Dotson is great with atmosphere.

2.75/ (rounded up) 5

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This book was not quite for me as I had a hard time connecting with the main character, Sadie, and could not rationalize a lot of her decisions. This book was creepy, and for sure gave Overlook Hotel vibes which I did enjoy, but ultimately this book did not do it for me. That being said, I would try this author again!

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Great book! It had all the fears of growing up. Make a choice. Turn the page or close the book. Enter the darkness if you wish!

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Thank you to NetGalley and publisher’s for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book is a fun monster story that takes place in a creepy hotel.

Sadie and her 3 year old daughter, Izzy are on the run, escaping from an abusive relationship. (DV trigger warning!) Sadie gets to L’Arpin Hotel where she gets a job cleaning rooms. But her coworkers are weird, the other guests are weird and the hotel itself has some weird ish going on. When guests start to go missing, the walls start dripping and something with tentacles finds its way out of her shower Sadie starts trying to figure out what tf is going on.

This books was slow to begin with but once it picked up it was a creepy, atmospheric and icky creature feature that I really enjoyed reading. The dialogue between Sadie and her daughter was a bit repetitive but worth getting through to get to the rest of the plot. Overall, a super fun read. The Cut will be released April 8!

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This book is a horror book, which is not a genre I typically choose to read. Sadie is running away from her abusive ex-husband with their daughter where they end top at a hotel in Ohio. I thought it was an interesting read, but I just didn't love the way the characters or their relationships were written. I also thought the ending was not satisfying.

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this was so slimy and unsettling with a really very tragic and fun backstory that is at its core. two thumbs way up

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