Member Review
Review by
Dimitri C, Reviewer
Thank you to NetGalley, Tatiana Schlote-Bonne, and Creature Publishing for a review copy of the book.
Content Warnings: Child Death, Death, Murder, Gore, Blood, Occult Rituals, Mental Illness, Demonic Activity Used To Excuse Mental Illnesses, PTSD, Gaslighting, Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Homophobia, Fatphobia, Racism, Animal Death, Sex, and Torture.
I was originally going to rate this a one star out of five, but the ending was so ridiculously funny that I had to bump up the rating.
“The Mean Ones” was not a good book. It was unintentionally hilarious, like a bad horror movie you’d find on Tubi or other free streaming services. I have never read any of Tatiana Schlote-Bonne’s other work, but if they are as poorly written as “The Mean Ones,” I will have to skip them.
In 2006, main character Sabrina witnesses the murders of two girls while at summer camp. These girls are supposed to be her best friends, but they are rude, mean, abusive, and just generally little snots. Sabrina considers them the “mean ones” while she is a “nice one.” The thing is, she isn’t. She is just as judgemental as her friends, even if she pretends that she isn’t.
In 2023, Sabrina has changed her name to Sadie and is working in physical therapy with her boyfriend, Lucas. She feels like she is living a charmed life, even if once in a while she finds herself transported to another realm, where dead animals talk to her in the voices of the friends she lost oh so long ago at summer camp. While in this realm, she hears the voice of a demon that has been haunting her and protecting her since that day in 2006 when her life was upended.
Told in a back-and-forth fashion, “The Mean Ones” unfolds by telling both stories–the inciting incident and what comes next.
The premise was interesting, I will say that. A mysterious, demonic voice? A murder that still haunts the survivor? Something great could be done with these plot points. Unfortunately, “The Mean Ones” just isn’t that good of a story. The characters are all unpleasant at best. Sadie is a push-over who is in an abusive relationship that she believes she can control with sexual acts (and she is off of her meds because she believes being with her boyfriend is enough to keep her mental illnesses in check). Sadie’s boyfriend, Lucas, is an abusive jerk who always has to get his way. Their friends, Eli and Heather, are vegan environmentalists that own a gas-guzzling Jeep and are neck-deep in crypto trading. The two girls in the past that were murdered were both annoying, mean, rude bullies who only pretended to like Sabrina for their own twisted amusement. Sadie’s mother is an attention-seeking, verbally abusive, fatphobic woman who probably shouldn’t have had children to begin with. The only likeable character is Sadie’s father, but he isn’t in the book long enough to really get a good feel for him, or for him to really mean anything to the narrative.
The writing was terrible. It was written very much like it should have been a young adult novel, but Schlote-Bonne added in random sexual scenes and thoughts, as well as swears and graphic descriptions of gore. An adult novel is not based on how many times one can write the word ‘nipple.’ Aside from that, a lot of the writing was flat. The moments that were supposed to be frightening were more silly than anything else, with massive amounts of unneeded gore.
I think the part of the book that upset me the most, however, is how mental illness is treated. Sadie swears off therapy and psych meds shortly after hooking up with Lucas, claiming that she didn’t need them as long as she had him and their daily workout sessions. Exercise can be a great tool for helping mental illness and mental health overall, but it is not a cure. After what Sadie had gone through as a child, she should still be with a therapist at the very least. Instead, the book treats her mental illness like it only exists because of a sexy-voiced demon in the Other World. Her mental illness is so heavily tied to this demon that it makes it feel like the author thinks that things like PTSD and BPD (which I feel Sadie has, as she is written) are imaginary, and that they can be waved away with the explanation of a demon having the hots for a thirteen year old girl.
On the plus side, it’s a quick read. The ending, which I mentioned above, was hilariously silly. It almost makes up for the rest of the book. Almost.
My advice is to just skip this one.
Content Warnings: Child Death, Death, Murder, Gore, Blood, Occult Rituals, Mental Illness, Demonic Activity Used To Excuse Mental Illnesses, PTSD, Gaslighting, Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Homophobia, Fatphobia, Racism, Animal Death, Sex, and Torture.
I was originally going to rate this a one star out of five, but the ending was so ridiculously funny that I had to bump up the rating.
“The Mean Ones” was not a good book. It was unintentionally hilarious, like a bad horror movie you’d find on Tubi or other free streaming services. I have never read any of Tatiana Schlote-Bonne’s other work, but if they are as poorly written as “The Mean Ones,” I will have to skip them.
In 2006, main character Sabrina witnesses the murders of two girls while at summer camp. These girls are supposed to be her best friends, but they are rude, mean, abusive, and just generally little snots. Sabrina considers them the “mean ones” while she is a “nice one.” The thing is, she isn’t. She is just as judgemental as her friends, even if she pretends that she isn’t.
In 2023, Sabrina has changed her name to Sadie and is working in physical therapy with her boyfriend, Lucas. She feels like she is living a charmed life, even if once in a while she finds herself transported to another realm, where dead animals talk to her in the voices of the friends she lost oh so long ago at summer camp. While in this realm, she hears the voice of a demon that has been haunting her and protecting her since that day in 2006 when her life was upended.
Told in a back-and-forth fashion, “The Mean Ones” unfolds by telling both stories–the inciting incident and what comes next.
The premise was interesting, I will say that. A mysterious, demonic voice? A murder that still haunts the survivor? Something great could be done with these plot points. Unfortunately, “The Mean Ones” just isn’t that good of a story. The characters are all unpleasant at best. Sadie is a push-over who is in an abusive relationship that she believes she can control with sexual acts (and she is off of her meds because she believes being with her boyfriend is enough to keep her mental illnesses in check). Sadie’s boyfriend, Lucas, is an abusive jerk who always has to get his way. Their friends, Eli and Heather, are vegan environmentalists that own a gas-guzzling Jeep and are neck-deep in crypto trading. The two girls in the past that were murdered were both annoying, mean, rude bullies who only pretended to like Sabrina for their own twisted amusement. Sadie’s mother is an attention-seeking, verbally abusive, fatphobic woman who probably shouldn’t have had children to begin with. The only likeable character is Sadie’s father, but he isn’t in the book long enough to really get a good feel for him, or for him to really mean anything to the narrative.
The writing was terrible. It was written very much like it should have been a young adult novel, but Schlote-Bonne added in random sexual scenes and thoughts, as well as swears and graphic descriptions of gore. An adult novel is not based on how many times one can write the word ‘nipple.’ Aside from that, a lot of the writing was flat. The moments that were supposed to be frightening were more silly than anything else, with massive amounts of unneeded gore.
I think the part of the book that upset me the most, however, is how mental illness is treated. Sadie swears off therapy and psych meds shortly after hooking up with Lucas, claiming that she didn’t need them as long as she had him and their daily workout sessions. Exercise can be a great tool for helping mental illness and mental health overall, but it is not a cure. After what Sadie had gone through as a child, she should still be with a therapist at the very least. Instead, the book treats her mental illness like it only exists because of a sexy-voiced demon in the Other World. Her mental illness is so heavily tied to this demon that it makes it feel like the author thinks that things like PTSD and BPD (which I feel Sadie has, as she is written) are imaginary, and that they can be waved away with the explanation of a demon having the hots for a thirteen year old girl.
On the plus side, it’s a quick read. The ending, which I mentioned above, was hilariously silly. It almost makes up for the rest of the book. Almost.
My advice is to just skip this one.
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