barren hemlockBOT
Book Link
Cover: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1643666795i/57693183.jpg
ID: 664f8d6922c6b8758bb939a5
Announcement: #buddy-reads message
barren hemlockBOT
### From <t:1717113600:D> to <t:1719705600:D> | Leader(s): <@492770898185682944>...
short tree
The UK cover is different 
rigid zenith
@strange sequoia @candid pewter @runic wave @short tree @sudden stag @timber spire @faint socket @undone dove @native breach
I think that's everyone for an impromptu ping 
(Sorry if you were pinged and were not interested in this! Gregg is taking a nap so I need to do this the old fashioned way! Double sorry if I doublepinged you, I fatfingered while I was trying to @ people)
Welcome to book 2 of the Catriona Ward season!
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1233391136257605706/1243271377771958282/Catriona_Ward.jpg?ex=665ac173&is=66596ff3&hm=fb6e840506cd9d826ae7cd3841dd19d0d8a0c42dafe4d381ea01563851417a49&
I think it's safe to say that #1233391136257605706 was a surprise hit so I'm very excited to carry on with this spotlight event to look at other books by her!
(If this goes well, I may start doing this with other authors, you all know that I host 6000 BRs a year 
)
You can't escape what's in your blood...
All Rob wanted was a normal life. She almost got it, too: a husband, two kids, a nice house in the suburbs. But Rob fears for her oldest daughter, Callie, who collects tiny bones and whispers to imaginary friends. Rob sees a darkness in Callie, one that reminds her too much of the family she left behind. She decides to take Callie back to her childhood home, to Sundial, deep in the Mojave Desert. And there she will have to make a terrible choice.
Callie is worried about her mother. Rob has begun to look at her strangely, and speaks of past secrets. And Callie fears that only one of them will leave Sundial alive…
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQPGrC4XMAUjfiX.jpg
Some small questions to get us warmed up, if you feel like answering them ☀️
Abi made a great point, what does your cover look like? Some of the covers for this book are gorgeous.
This is a very summery horror/thriller, are you a fan of 'horror in broad daylight' as a concept? Or are you more of a traditionalist when it comes to dark and gloomy atmosphere?
What's the hottest place you've vacationed to?
Do you have any expectations about what this book is going to be about?
rigid zenith
runic wave
<@245154841356140544> <@805749032030961664> <@481563287633526792> <@198521454579...
WOOO SO EXCITED FOR THIS
short tree
Vaude shoutout
short tree
<@245154841356140544> <@805749032030961664> <@481563287633526792> <@198521454579...
rigid zenith
1. So my cover is a little boring but it does still have a wolf on it!
2. I thin...
Are you even from the UK if you haven't gone to the Canary Islands? 
God I love Tenerife, I went to Lanzarote a few years ago too. My answer was going to be New Orleans though, you'd open the door and it would be like someone threw a bucket of water over you. 
short tree
Are you even from the UK if you haven't gone to the Canary Islands? <:wheeze:631...
Right! Either there or somewhere like Turkey where it's pretty cheap to go to as well. I want to start going on more holidays but I don't really know where to start.
New Orleans sounds so good but I don't know how I'd be able to cope with that heat. I'd need a fan permanently on me or something.
rigid zenith
We're not made for the heat! 
undone dove
so excited, and i love the banner, vaude!
crisp nexus
<@245154841356140544> <@805749032030961664> <@481563287633526792> <@198521454579...
faint socket
I haven't gotten it yet!! But i believe it's the one Alex has!
I haven't read that much horror actually but I think horror in broad daylight is absolutely scarier
I'm from India (Kerala specifically and it's tropical so v humid and v hot) and I grew up in Thailand so I'm quite tolerant of heat. Yet somehow, the hottest place I've been to is Milan during the summer. It was the worst thing I'd ever experienced to the point that summertime depression became a very real thing for me 
Absolutely none, all I know about this is that it's horror and the blurb which i kinda forgot
runic wave
Are you even from the UK if you haven't gone to the Canary Islands? <:wheeze:631...
now i feel like a fake brit, ive never been to Lanzarote or Tenerife 
ive been to skegness but i feel like thats a v northern holiday place so niche to my area
strange sequoia
WOOO SO EXCITED FOR THIS
1. i have the one with the wold on, thats on the billb...
I'm taking this on vacation with me and I plan to do a lot of beach reading! I'm a mood reader when it comes to a lot of genres... except horror.
rigid zenith
now i feel like a fake brit, ive never been to Lanzarote or Tenerife <:kekcry:11...
Every Brit has been to the Canary Islands in their soul, don't worry
runic wave
so true, ive watched every episode of Benidorm at the least so ive had some experience with extremely british holidays /j
strange sequoia
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/PKWT71/britannia-pub-in-playa-de-las-americas-tenerife...
a variation of this pub shows up every 3 doors downtown in my hometown lmao
oblique lake
<@245154841356140544> <@805749032030961664> <@481563287633526792> <@198521454579...
Hi, I haven't been active here in a hot minute and I haven't been reading at all lately, but I do own this book so I thought I'd join!
rigid zenith
Hi, I haven't been active here in a hot minute and I haven't been reading at all...
Welcome echo! So happy to have you here! 
oblique lake
Finished chapter 1. Oof, that's a lot.
strange sequoia
Ch. 1 (Rob): ||I'm so pumped for this. The feels are going to hit with this one, I can tell. Rob ellaborating the blackmail and abuse by Irving and how she loves her job since "she has no such power at home"... oof. When Rob hide his medication and he says "I hope I find it too", then the (painful, painful) flashback and how the resentment has been building up slowly... The subtle hints of dissociation at the end of the chapter? Incredible opener - setting up expectations, allowing us to side immediately with Rob, the slight eery feeling, the fact she has very strong associations of her abusive husband with her children already and how horrifying it felt to me that she clearly had a child she favoured due to her relationship.||
oblique lake
Ch. 1 (Rob): ||I'm so pumped for this. The feels are going to hit with this one,...
||I had the same thoughts. I wonder if us as readers immediately siding with Rob will come back to bite us later in the story.||
strange sequoia
I have now started enumerating the chapters by hand since there's no real chapter nrs.
So, Rob ch.3: ||The way Rob distinguishes her two children and Callie's fascination with bones is so interesting, but further intensifies the fact there's something wrong with both mother and daughter imo. Also, the fact that she's taking one child away from the rest of the family then closing the chapter reiterating this is all for Annie's sake. Chilling||
strange sequoia
Rob, ch.7: ||"She is still a child. It's important to remember this, whatever else she may be." 
"I want – no, need – him to be as sacred as I am." Damn Rob. Also, alluding to her father being a serial killer as she grew up? I wonder how screwed up Rob AND Callie really are. "I bueried my old self as Sundial. We need to leave parts of Callie here too." 
||
undone dove
the urge to open alex’s texts is so strong
oblique lake
Ch 3 (Rob) and ch 4 (Callie) -- ||I found the way Rob views her children very interesting and twisted. Why is it that she dislikes Callie so much? The way this book shows a side of motherhood not commonly shown is interesting to me as well. In society, mothers are typically seen as heroes and caregivers. And although this is true, not in Rob's case. I sided with her at first with the Irving being unfaithful and abusive thing, but hearing how she speaks and thinks of her firstborn-- she's revealing a side of herself that she herself loathes. As for Callie's chapter, it seems she can see and communicate with spirits? What is the significance of Sundial?||
strange sequoia
Up until ch. 12, Callie: ||
very concerned about this child, her bones, imaginary selves and x-ato knives||
strange sequoia
Ch. 13, "Rob, then": ||such a heavy chapter. The cult-like family Rob was brought up in, the messed up relationships... the dogs messed me up 
just a sad chapter to read overall. I was dreading every chapter, waiting for gruesome details involving the animals. Also, wondering if Jack is being injected with whatever they experimented on the dogs (the biting at the end of the chapter + everything else that happened to the twins). Oof 
||
rigid zenith
Hehe
strange sequoia
Up until ch. 19, "Rob": ||I don't really like the novel inserts/Arrowood sections of the novel. So far I'm just... really sad about the puppy experiment plot 
I'm still a little unsure about how I feel about the connection of the present-day chapters and past Rob/Jack. I'm about halfway through so I'm hoping present day developments start picking up.||
strange sequoia
Ch. 21, "Rob, then":|| Holy shit, Irving being an insufferable creep and correcting the menu made me feel so shitty for the restaurant owner 
Catriona Ward really said "no redeemable qualities" when writing this asshole||
rigid zenith
Chapter 1 (Pg 6.)
||I don't know why it's so weird to me to gather your children to watch Harvey of all things I love that movie but I can't even begin to imagine a kid watching it in the modern age. The tension is really good in this first chapter I can't lie. ||
rigid zenith
Pg 26.
||Jesus, that line from Irving saying that he was going to wait until their relationship recovered before taking Callie is COLD. 
||
strange sequoia
Ch. 23, "Rob, then": ||not Pawel, ugh. Side note I still can't stand the Arrowood chapters. The double-pregnancy was something that I feel we kind of expected at this point... still unsure what kind o mystical/evil affliction has gotten over Jack, if any. I assume Callie is really Jack's?||
Ch. 28, "Jack, then": ||Holy shit so much to take in. I honestly didn't see that coming, plus Rob naming both her and Jack after the 2 adults who kept them. ALSO the name "Grainger" being the evil character in Arrowood means Rob subconsciously remembers??... My gripe with the novel chapters can finally be put to rest.||
I finished this yesterday during a flight, the last 50% of the novel flew () by - I want to write my final thoughts so I'll probably be back later today.
rigid zenith
Chapter 3
Rob
||Lots of bombshells already - to be honest there's such a strange energy to Rob but then again this isn't exactly a straight forward problem??? Callie is even stranger, there's something very wrong with this family as a whole. Annie praying and such isn't that strange to me because my cousin had a fixation on relgion from a young age too without seemingly any outside influences. Kids are weird. ||
rigid zenith
Yeah I've already lost my attempt at a chapter count
But I'll still put who's speaking in the chapter and the page number I'm stopped at so that no one accidentally spoils hopefully 
Callie Pg. 80
||I'm really thrown by the fact that Annie is supposed to be 9. Especially by how much both Callie and Rob infantilize her? I thought it was really strange that Rob was giving her a bath? Am I alone in this? 
||
crisp nexus
Okay, finally started this today.
My e-book doesn't have chapter numbers, weirdly. Rob (Pg. 52): || There are so many unsettling things about this, I don't even know where to start. Pretty much everyone apart from Annie (so far) is weird. I'm not sure what it is about Rob's character that really unnerves me. Irving's threat of taking Callie away, and then Rob being the one to actually do it, maybe? The fact that she's able to be civil towards Hannah, or compartmentalise her husband's affairs so easily, just to have 'stability' for her daughters. (I mean, there's definitely nothing remotely stable about their home environment). There's something very obviously wrong with both Irving and Callie (the snake bones, the dead squirrel, "give me the lamp or someone will die", etc., but I feel like Rob is the one to watch out for. ||
strange sequoia
Alright, final thoughts!
||This was such a great read and, unlike Needless Street, I think it progressively got better. It felt incredibly vague during the first 30% of the novel and when I first understood most of the exposition was going to be made via flashback I was like "oh shucks" - BUT it was REALLY good exposition.
The narrative was so, so good, the characters were so weird and thoroughly unlikable (but the more we got to know them the more I understood why) and I feel like the last 50% of this book was really just 5 stars.
Overall, this was a solid 4.5 star read. I liked how open-ended this felt (was Annie the "evil dog" all along? Would she hurt Irving's mistress? I enjoy that this was not the focus of the story and that we only got to understand how really messed up the younger daughter was by the end of the story). The setting was arid, uncomfortable, icky. I felt so sad every time a development regarding the children's past came to life...
And the dogs... oof. Such a hard plotline hit like a bullet-train out of hell. I feel like Sundial deserves a 5 
rating from me. I still can't stop thinking about it and how I'd like to discuss this with everyone who would like to talk about this read. For me, that's a solid sign I just experienced a stellar read!||
undone dove
for some reason i have been on chapter one for like 2-3 hours now, i don’t know if i’m in a slump or it’s just not reeling me in
ch. 1 - rob ||that’s a very shallow way of thinking. i’d rather have divorced parents and live healthily and in peace without screaming all the time than be with two people who don’t like each other and are only staying for ‘my’ sake. mmhm, i’m not a fan of rob so far. or anyone in this book for that matter.||
||seriously, what the fuck is wrong with every adult in this book||
undone dove
reading tracker
ch. 1 - rob
ch. 2 - arrowood
ch. 3 - rob
ch. 4 - callie
ch. 5 - rob
ch. 6 - callie
ch. 7 - rob
ch. 8 - callie
ch. 9 - rob
ch. 10 - arrowood
ch. 11 - callie
ch. 12 - rob
ch. 13 - callie
ch. 14 - rob (then)
ch. 15 - callie
ch. 16 - rob (then)
ch. 17 - arrowood
ch. 18 - rob (then)
ch. 19 - callie
ch. 20 - rob
ch. 21 - rob (then)
ch. 22 - rob (then)
ch. 23 - arrowood
ch. 24 - rob (then)
ch. 25 - callie
ch. 26 - rob
ch. 27 - rob
ch. 28 - jack (then)
ch. 29 - rob
ch. 30 - rob (then)
ch. 31 - rob
ch. 32 - callie
ch. 33 - rob
ch. 34 - arrowood
ch. 35 - rob
ch. 36 - callie
undone dove
ch. 3 - rob ||i’m very much inclined to think that callie is the villain of the book but after reading the last house on needless street, i am always suspicious of what catriona ward has up her huge ass sleeves 
||
||i love the way she speaks tho, it’s so cunty. i’m so sleepy zzz tired face||
||your sick daughter?! girl are you not the dad? embarrassing||
undone dove
ch. 4 - callie ||jfc do not tell me this psychopath killed a puppy||
undone dove
ch. 10 - arrowood ||girl what the fuck was that urgh i hate cocoons||
ch. 12 ||seriously what the hell is this family’s problem with maggots||
undone dove
ch. 14 ||ok i have absolutely no idea what’s going on like at all||
||is falcon, like, her father||
undone dove
ch. 16 ||….what the fuck why are we suddenly chopping up dogmeat? to be honest i’m not really a fan of this book||
undone dove
ch. 24 ||absolutely love the name asia||
undone dove
kkay, i just finished this. did not like it at all, and want to erase it from my memory asap. off to read everyone else's thoughts
final thoughts:
||did not like this at all. i get very queasy when reading about animal abuse but somehow pushed through with this book, only skimming when the details become too gory. so what does this say about sundial? that the plot was interesting enough to keep me going?
unfortunately, no. the plot did not wow me at all. and i think maybe last house set a really high standard for catriona ward books. to be honest when reading the blurb for this one i wasn’t very interested, but i still wanted to read it because of how much i loved last house, but i should’ve just dnf-ed it, because reading about experiments on dogs (with my own baby dogs sleeping next to me) did not justify the lackluster plot that i got.
it’s just not for me. i’m just not a fan of thriller books with experiments, excessive animal abuse, and… mixed with domestic abuse that i also don’t think was necessary? like that level of domestic abuse?
i also saw everything coming. i knew rob and jack weren’t falcon and mia’s children (i know i asked about falcon being their dad, but after further reading that theory flew out of my head). i knew callie wasn’t rob’s child as soon as it was revealed that jack was pregnant. i figured out who irving really was in the freaking first? second?? chapter of arrowood before the whole puppy farm thing was revealed
one more thing i wonder about is why there were so many students coming in and out of sundial? they were experimenting on dogs?! (don’t come at me, i would react the same way if they were experimenting on cats or other animals, jfc)
really just not for me. should’ve dnf’ed it. want it out of my memory. please don't take offense to this if you liked it, this is all just a me situation and i'm glad you liked it, if you did!||
if it's okay, i don't want to participate in further discussion 
it's okay if you can't give me br points for it! but i will still be looking out for the other catriona ward reads!
||too much animal abuse, i don't want to be too upset, just want to forget about it all :))|| 
rigid zenith
if it's okay, i don't want to participate in further discussion <a:blk_kuromitea...
WHAT
Of course you're getting points, it's A-OK to not discuss tons as long as you've talked about the book and you always do babe, don't worry. PLUS you gave us a chapter tracker too. I'm fascinated to see that you didn't like this 
I guess this is the interesting part of hosting an author's multiple works that there's gonna be some that people don't like. I need to catch up on reading fr.
I hope the next book is better for you! 
rigid zenith
Okay thanks to Jana's reading tracker, I'm at chapter 16
||So I'm actually kinda intrigued by the backstory for Rob and the place she grew up in. It's all very weird kind of in the same vein as Needless Street. I'm not sure what to make of this commune but I'm warming to Pawel for sure. Maybe it's a genetic thing being able to see the ghosts? ||
runic wave
jana youre a real one for that tracker 
im so excited to get to this but im forcing myself to finish dune first since thats due at the end of the month nd i keep procrastinating it LMAOO but then... then im reading this 
undone dove
WHAT
Of course you're getting points, it's A-OK to not discuss tons as long as y...
ahh okay thank you vaude and yeah i didn’t want to have to count from the first chapter to see where i’m at AHAHAHA
strange sequoia
@rigid zenith sorry for the ping! I've been a little afk so I just wanted to ask if we'll be doing more Catriona Ward reads in July and August? Are these the titles and will they be in this order? If so I'd love to get ahold of them in advance so I can schedule some reading time just for this author 
rigid zenith
<@492770898185682944> sorry for the ping! I've been a little afk so I just wante...
Yes! That's the plan!
strange sequoia
Yes! That's the plan!
Aaaaah exciting!!!
strange sequoia
Yes! That's the plan!
Sorry to double-post but I just got the 2 other novels on Kindle and I'm very excited 
sudden stag
I’m late to the part but this is the Libby cover and I love it
short tree
that cover is so pretty and colourful
rigid zenith
Chapter 21
Rob, then
||I HAD A FEELING SOMETHING LIKE THIS WAS UP BUT STILL 
Jack and Rob are adopted by Falcon and Mia, Lily was never a thing, it makes complete sense.||
Chapter 22
Rob, then
||AAA IRVING IS THE KIDNAPPER DUDE TOO? MAN WHAT. I kinda thought that might be the case. I know that Rob is naïve but if someone pulled my hair I would punch him in the throat. 😃||
rigid zenith
Chapter 30
Rob, then
||THAT...was a lot to unpack. Holy fuck that was both a horrible, stressful, infuriating chapter but likely the most memorable part of the book. That was a really really well written scene. Honestly this whole book feels like a Jordan Peel movie.||
rigid zenith
I did finish this tonight! I'll post my thoughts when I wake up! 
strange sequoia
Chapter 30
Rob, then
||THAT...was a lot to unpack. Holy fuck that was both a hor...
RIGHT?? I couldn't put my finger on it but that's SUCH a good reference!!
rigid zenith
||I think the thing that Catriona Ward is amazing at is just making everything feel WEIRD. This is a WEIRD plot about WEIRD characters doing WEIRD things. For a large portion of the book I was very unsure how to feel about it - I won't deny that it was really hard to put down though. I feel like how she chooses to relay story is always pretty interesting too - I was wary when there was the first flashback but when I saw how long the chapter was and how it chose to sell the information to me then I was on board. The story-within a- story chapters are a little harder to swallow but I don't find their presence terribly unwelcome. If anything it just adds to this strange discordant feel were the narrative feels like of like you're trying to traverse unsteady ground.||
||I thoroughly disliked every single character in the book. I think the only character I could say that I did not actively hate was Pawel. And you know what? That's actually fine! It's a bit refreshing! I could not stand Rob with her wishy-washy shitty attitude, Callie's emoji-talk and creepy kid energy could get tf out, Irving is the most toxic man alive, Jack could just generally get in the bin especially for the events in Chapter 30, Mia and Falcon were low on the offending pole but they can also sod off (even though I do feel a little bit worse for the pair of them, specifically in the offending Chapter 30, Falcon's last words were pretty hard hitting). It's so strange to say that "i hated literally every character" and it not be a considerable detriment.||
TW: Animal Abuse
||The horror elements on this book are really hard hitting if you're an animal lover - I absolutely am and kinda loved the balls Catriona Ward has to show so much straight up animal sociopathy. I know that I keep mentioning Chapter 30 but there's this wonderful sense of catharsis intermixed with all the horror of that scene in particular when the mother dog breaks loose and actually kills the people that put her through so much, not to mention the way that it's not written in a particularly graphic way, just sickeningly realistic enough. It really reminded me of the chimp scene from Jordan Peel's Nope in some way. The concept of those dogs without top heads... even the idea of the ghost puppy that follows Callie around is upsetting.||
||Actually I'll throw people sociopathy in here too with the particularly nasty relationships that are written in this book. We have Irving and Rob's 'marriage' that seems to be build on sick power plays and cruelty, whatever sick shit Jack and Rob have going on - I'll throw in that for a large portion of the flashback chapters I absolutely could not put my finger on how old they were until there was talk of college. There's a lot of infantilizing in this book that definitely makes me uncomfortable, this includes how Rob treats her daughters, which after the flashbacks I'm assuming it's an overprotective thing but there's no way I would have guessed that Callie is 11 and Annie is 9 
Let's throw the puppy farm narrative in here too because damn. I got the feeling something more was up but not human trafficking meth house. ||
||Like Needless Street, it's twists wrapped in twists - some of them are far more predictable this time around but I'm also not the sort of person who tries to guess twists early so that wasn't so much of a problem for me I'm very head-empty when I'm just vibing with books like this. I rather liked that things were often not used ONCE and that was the end of it, for example that the pink star lamp has a hidden compartment that used to hold Jack's drugs now holds Irving's heart medication that Annie intends to poison his paramour with. Another thing I liked is that things did just 'make sense', the book is an absolute clusterfuck of abnormal scenes and far-fetched plotlines but the brass tax is that it's a decent narrative that when it's laid out does make sense! ||
1/
||I think my biggest complaint with the twists is similar to what I mentioned in Needless Street- there's a lot of 'gotcha' energy in those final scenes where "OH IT JUST LOOKED LIKE THAT~" mostly involving previous scenes where Callie would talk about 'punishing' Annie, it was laid on REALLY thick during the early scenes so I found it a little annoying but it was way less egregious in this book compared to Needless Street where it more or less mulligan'd all the information we were given to make a twist. Going forward with Ward's stuff, I think we just need to anticipate different angles from the information we're given I definitely had way less of a problem with the final chapters of this book compared with Needless Street.||
So yeah! If I'm ranking all the books in this mini-event so far, I think I still put Needless Street a bit above Sundial but
Last House On Needless Street (5 
)
Sundial (4 )
strange sequoia
ugh I loved this analysis so much, I want to get back into the specifics, I have so many thoughts about certain segments of this book - I'll be revisiting this thread!!
rigid zenith
ugh I loved this analysis so much, I want to get back into the specifics, I have...
I'm definitely down to talk more about it!
plucky ember
I'll be joining this one too!
short tree
Okay I'm gonna start this now 
There are a lot of plaudits at the front of the book
Chapter 1 - Rob: ||Nah, I'm sorry, Rob is sat at home with her sick child and her husband is out having affairs? DIVORCE||
short tree
||TV is a form of escapism to me and helps me forget about real life. Rob, you could probably do with some of that.||
||Genuinely if you're doing petty gestures to try and get back at your spouse, maybe you should just call it quits.||
||Why was the highchair so close to the garbage disposal in the first place??||
||Also Irving referring to their child just as hers.....yeah, garbage man.||
||Kinda wild that her husband is having an affair with her friend and she's mentally asking her friend to pick her instead.||
Girl, some of the people in this family are a little unhinged.
||The fact she's happy about not getting divorced and 'putting her kids through that' but also acknowledges that her kids are aware that things aren't 100% at home. You're not doing them any favours staying in a marriage that frankly sounds a bit abusive.||
Chapter 2 - Arrowood: ||So this is lowkey a self-insert into a story?||
Chapter 3 - Rob: ||Irving stating the absolute obvious there 
||
||Nah, if there's a twist that she's doing bad things to people in her family and trying to pin it on others. I genuinely don't know but I'm expecting some kind of twist here.||
Chapter 4 - Callie: ||Is this an actual puppy in a dumpster? If so, please rescue it.||
||So 'pale' means the person is dying? Why does Callie have a pale version of herself then and why is she talking to it?||
Chapter 5 - Rob: I'm not sure if I'm meant to like Rob or sympathise with her but I kinda don't
Chapter 6 - Callie: ||Okay, Dumpster Puppy is clearly something else that she's imagining.||
Chapter 7 - Rob: ||I genuinely have no idea what's going on. Callie is actually killing the things she's seeing? That wouldn't make much sense.||
||So, her childhood sounds a bit different to say the least.||
Chapter 8 - Callie: ||Trying to understand this and either Pale Callie is a possibility or just another dead girl called Callie? And Callie can see dead people/animals if she collects their bones? Which is kinda cool but also terrifying.||
||I can't be doing with her talking in emojis though 🤡 ||
Chapter 11 - Callie: ||She's threatening to cut her sister's tongue out with a knife???||
||This is making me so uneasy like why do I feel as though Rob and Callie are both plotting to kill each other?||
Chapter 12 - Rob: ||Yep, it wouldn't shock me if they all just take each other out.||
Chapter 13 - Callie: ||"Exercise is terrible" kinda real of her ngl||
||At least we finally know who Jack is in the story as well.||
Chapter 14 - Rob, then: ||Wait, can Rob see dead things too? Is it just a thing kids can do?||
||Collecting dogs that have a 'psycho murderer' gene is a hobby I would never have guessed that people would have.||
||Why are the kids having monthly MRIs and blood tests? That doesn't sound normal either.||
Chapter 15 - Callie: ||Nah, Irving blatantly being a gaslighter. Get rid of him.||
Chapter 16 - Rob, then: ||Is Jack being her twin going to play into this? Especially if they look pretty similar.||
||Experimenting on dogs? Nope, that's not a good vibe to me.||
||Is she trying to relive her youth through her kids? I feel like I'm just asking a bunch of questions about this but it does very much feel like you're given little tidbits that might be significant or not and they slowly piece together.||
Chapter 18 - Rob, then: ||Isn't the code the day JFK died? Either that's relevant somehow or it's just a random number.||
||Or the Stephen King novel which might be more likely.||
||Experimenting on pets like this is just blatant animal abuse. I don't get how the characters would ever justify it.||
||The fact that they don't even have names and they're so clearly detached from them.||
Chapter 19 - Callie: ||If they're not plotting to kill each other then why is Callie making a knife and practicing stabbing and why is Rob digging a grave 🤔 ||
Chapter 20 - Rob: ||tbh I think both kids shouldn't be with either Rob or Irving and should be in therapy but that wouldn't make for a very suspenseful story||
Chapter 21 - Rob, then: ||I'm hazarding a guess that they experienced a bunch of trauma when they were kids which is why they were adopted and didn't talk until they were 6.||
Chapter 22 - Rob, then: ||Irving knew Jack and used to work at Sundial? That definitely adds a different context to his and Rob's relationship.||
||Not a fan of the age difference and the fact he's a professor. That man really is just a walking red flag.||
||Get this (statutory) r*pist out of this book, I swear||
Chapter 24 - Rob, then: ||I'm glad Rob is getting close to Jack but we know Jack dies and Rob gets back with Irving so I'm betting something tragic happens and she retreats into something familiar.||
||....did Jack beating her cause her to have a miscarriage? wtf I'd never forgive my sibling if they did that to me.||
||Also her naming that baby Callie and then naming her rainbow baby Callie as well is not good at all.||
||Wait, what if Callie is actually Jack's kid and that's why Rob has less of a connection to her? I'm just throwing out any theory at this point.||
Chapter 25 - Callie: ||Yeah, I think she might have killed Jack as well. Who knows.||
||I hate Irving. Can we stop with mentioning him?||
Chapter 27 - Rob, then: ||Not surprised at all that the dogs they've been experimenting on for years are displaying unnatural behaviour like eating each other alive.||
||What do you mean a five year old killed two people and then made it look like a murder-suicide?||
||And they experimented on the kids too? Gross.||
||Purposefully getting the dog pregnant too to see if Jack's child is going to be messed up after the experiments. This is just nuts.||
Chapter 29 - Jack then: ||Okay, so that's where the name Grainger comes from.||
Chapter 30 - Rob: ||Another nature vs nurture book 🤔 ||
short tree
||Wait, what if Callie is actually Jack's kid and that's why Rob has less of a c...
Chapter 31 - Rob then: if I'm right about this 
||The parallel of Jack and 23 and them dying because of each other is pretty sad. I wish they'd both got a better ending.||
Chapter 33 - Callie: ||Okay but it should be fairly easy to verify if Rob is telling the truth or not so Callie should just google it to find out. Or am I being silly here?||
||Nah, can we kill Irving please? He needs to keep his hands to himself.||
||So is pale Callie Rob's bio daughter? If so I don't get how she's grown up.||
Chapter 35 - Rob: ||Irving gone, god bless 🙏 ||
Chapter 36 - Callie: ||So we're going with like mother, like daughter?||
||Oooh, it's completely open ended so we have no idea if Annie murders Hannah or not.||
Finished. ||Just last the last Catriona Ward BR this was a slow burner in the first half for me but came together more in the second. I could actually see a bit more where the story was going in this one and it was a little less twisty for me because of it but I still enjoyed the journey. I hated Irving obviously but I also wish we got a bit more of the mother/daughter relationship with both of Rob's kids. The animal abuse and how that was paralleled with child abuse was also a bit difficult to read at times. I'm still not sure if I'm gonna settle on 3.25 or 3.5 stars for this one.||
strange sequoia
||Oooh, it's completely open ended so we have no idea if Annie murders Hannah or...
I actually enjoyed this decision from the author a lot.
stuck quarryBOT
rigid zenith
Hey guys! We've got just over a week left, how are we looking? Do we need any extensions?
short tree
I actually enjoyed this decision from the author a lot.
I did as well! ||I like that it gives the readers a choice in deciding what happens next and tbh life in general isn’t neatly wrapped up either so it somewhat reflects that.||
runic wave
Hey guys! We've got just over a week left, how are we looking? Do we need any ex...
is there anyway we could get an extention, its not looking like ill get to this in time
rigid zenith
is there anyway we could get an extention, its not looking like ill get to this...
No problem! How long? 
timber spire
I just started this
runic wave
No problem! How long? <:imjustagirl:1222038777279545355>
would just 1 week be ok
faint socket
I would also need an extension, but for 2 weeks
rigid zenith
Let's call it 3, I'll sort it out after I sleep
runic wave
hell yeah, thank yew vaude
barren hemlockBOT
Ongoing BuddyRead
rigid zenith
plucky ember
Thank you Vaude! Hoping to get to this soon
sudden stag
Still in ch 1 and ||fuuuuuuck that dude is a psychopath. Like I’m genuinely concerned he’s going to kill his whole family. Ffs what are you making me read Vaude?||
sudden stag
Ch 3 Rob ||that husband is a real asshole. I don’t get why he hates her but he did mention something about covering things up for Rob and implying Callie gets her homicidal inclinations from her, so I’m willing to hang on a little longer here||
sudden stag
Ch 11 Callie ||”Its complicated, looking at your little sister and seeing a smaller version of your mother.” 
that really hit me hard and I’m going to sit for a while and think about why||
sudden stag
Ch 13 Callie ||damn does Catriona know how to write abt normal people?||
sudden stag
Ch 14 Rob ||cool to get some backstory. Sounds like their dad is doing some weird fucking experiments. Wonder if he’s trying to genetically modify Jack to be a killer, since he’s trying to genetically remove it from the dogs||
sudden stag
Ch 16 Rob ||I think Irving was the one who helped Jack escape. Didn’t realize he was so much older than Rob||
sudden stag
Ch 20 Rob ||I hope she’s going to murder Irving and bury him with the dogs. Not a bad idea since there’s already a bunch of remains there||
sudden stag
Ch 23 Arrowood ||Kind of wild to write fanfiction about your own life and make yourself the bad guy||
sudden stag
Ch 24 Rob ||Oooo that’s what I need, an aloe vera face mask. Also I think Callie is Jack’s baby and the drugs are why she’s so weird. Plus all of the gestures to everything but that’s why Rob treats her different||
Ch 25 Callie ||I wonder if pale Callie is like the ghost of the one who was miscarried||
sudden stag
Ch 33 Callie ||Oh Irving has no idea what he’s walking into here. He still thinks he’s in charge lmao, and he thinks they experimented on dogs. Rob (Jack) is like no I’m the experiment you idiot||
sudden stag
rigid zenith
A week left guys
plucky ember
Oops, I’d forgotten
I’ll move this up on my tbr
runic wave
planning on starting this in the next couple days
plucky ember
Started!
Ch. 1 Rob
||This is so messed up already ughhhhh men 
Why’s Rob even tolerant like leaaaave||
plucky ember
Ch.8 Callie
||Is the author addressing some mental health stuff here? How’s a preteen having these imaginary characters? Is it generational trauma or something? I’m loving the creepy dark vibes. So far there isn’t a character I’ve liked but there sure is one I loathe ||
timber spire
Chapter 1 ||I thought she said my little beer ||
Chapter 1 ||i would hate having mittens ducktaped to my clothes like even if she is just 9 atleast try to give her autonomy ||
plucky ember
Finished this yesterday! Will share thoughts here after work
plucky ember
My final thoughts:
||This was soooo messed up but so well written Catriona Ward's a pro at creating super messed up weird characters and setting the whole vibe up. I think I was hooked from the start but hadn't been expecting much of the animal abuse in certain parts of the book so that kinda got super hard and I had to skim through. I like that Ward doesn't explicitly mention everything though, a lot's implied rather than explained in graphic details and that suits me very well. I think the book intentionally had no likeable characters but then again, I felt it was like an exploration of the human psyche and the effects of extreme trauma and abuse 
While I didn't like Rob, her situation and like everything made me feel so trapped and claustrophobic and I kept wishing for things to get better only for her to end up with the biggest assholes of all time, Irving. A lot was predictable like Warm/Pale Callie or her being Jack's kid, but it's not what got me - the revelation at the end of Annie possessing some of the creepy traits was just unexpected - like we've got those initial few chapters of Callie wanting to shut Annie off and almost psychopathic narrative and then to have her be like 'I was only protecting Annie, taking the fall for Annie' somehow doesn't sit right with me. I did like how Rob goes through her own story with Callie and it felt quite like much-needed talk therapy in a way. I mean perhaps they both needed that to finally be real with each other. I felt like I wanted a lot more from the book yet I'd also admit I'm a fan of Catriona Ward now and would lap up everything she publishes.|| It's a 3.75 🌟 for me!
I wish the book had numbered chapters 
.
I listened to the audiobook and had a couple annotations along the way but I don't want to go back to check which chapter it'd correspond to and all that. See you folks in #1257471240759808012 💜
Thanks for hosting Vaude!! 
I'm so glad I got to know of this author and that we're doing a Catriona Ward event
timber spire
im gonna continue this at another time
short tree
This BR has finished now right?
rigid zenith
This BR has finished now right?
Technically yes! I'm going to go through all my OBC task backlogs today
short tree
Technically yes! I'm going to go through all my OBC task backlogs today <:cattoH...
Yay, more points 
I hope you're good though Vaude
rigid zenith
I wasn't home last week and I've got like 100 things to do here
rigid zenith
I hope you're good though Vaude
I'm good Abi! Just been busy! 
Sorry about the delay on the report, you guys are so much fun to read with and work hard to share your thoughts.
short tree
I'm good Abi! Just been busy! <:blobhuglove:621436440605098004>
Sorry about the...
No, you don't need to apologise! Life happens and things can be busy
strange sequoia
Technically yes! I'm going to go through all my OBC task backlogs today <:cattoH...
Thank you so much for hosting this! I'm having a blast with the Catriona Ward series and can't wait for the last book in the event 
short tree
Thank you so much for hosting this! I'm having a blast with the Catriona Ward se...
I think there might be another one if there's enough interest
strange sequoia
I think there *might* be another one if there's enough interest
ooo, other than Little Eve?
short tree
ooo, other than Little Eve?
There was talk that we might do Rawblood as well but that’s not set in stone
stuck quarryBOT
strange sequoia
There was talk that we might do Rawblood as well but that’s not set in stone
good to know, thank you! I'll be on the lookout for any Catriona Ward reads regardless 
rigid zenith
I'm waiting for the general consensus on how we feel about carrying on - I'm totally down to host Rawblood if everyone is game. 
short tree
Has there been a drop off with the BRs?
rigid zenith
I don't think so, I'm gonna check against the End of BR reports to see how many are finishing
runic wave
tysm for hosting vaude!!! sorry I never got around to this, life has gotten too much lately nd I just haven't had the energy to read I'm gonna get to this nd stay in the event nd get to future ones though
barren hemlockBOT
@rigid zenith,@strange sequoia,@candid pewter,@runic wave,@undone dove,@faint socket,@native breach,@short tree,@sudden stag,@echo crescent,@crisp nexus,@oblique lake,@cobalt moat,@plucky ember
Better late than other cutiepies, thank you so much for joining me for entry 3 in my Catriona Ward event! We're set to wrap up on Looking Glass Sound soon and Little Eve is on the horizon! Don't forget to join in the BR request channel if you're still interested!
I'm going to submit the report now, thanks again for your patience! :heart: See you soon!
barren hemlockBOT
Better late than other cutiepies, thank you so much for joining me for entry 3 i...
short tree
thank you for hosting Vaude
I signed up for the Little Eve BR and I'm reading Looking Glass Sound as we speak
strange sequoia
Thank you again 
undone dove
thank you for hosting vaude, you're so awesome
runic wave
thank you sm again for hosting vaude!!! im planning on finishing this today nd am honestly enjoying it not as much as tlhons but still nd im hyped to continue this event!!! 
rigid zenith
thank you sm again for hosting vaude!!! im planning on finishing this today nd a...
OH SHOOT, let me wait then, if you're close to finishing let me get you the points
I'm already super late lmao I might as well give as many points as I can
I'll wait until tomorrow morning
And then I'll put them all on
Finished: Alex, Jana, Vaude, Abi, Hanzy, Tink.
Almost finished: Zander
runic wave
AWW THANK YOU ill speed through it nd send my thoughts when im all wrapped up in that case 
ive only got like an hour or two left now!!
sudden stag
Thanks for hosting Vaude!
runic wave
nd im all done!! im giving this 3.5 stars. i didnt love this as much as i did the last house on needless street, but this was still interesting nd still had my attention so i cant complain much. ||rob just got on my nerves a lot. i know its because she was in an abusive relationship nd abusive childhood from both her bio parents nd lowkey from mia nd falcon. genuinely couldnt believe she was the same age as jack half the time because she just was so whiney nd annoying?? it just was so weird, i feel like anyone that was under the age of 18 was just violently infantalised nd it annoyed me a little. overall it was written really well though nd i think in part with the interest of the mystery with rob nd jack nd what ever the actual fuck was going on in sundial.|| vaude ik you mentioned in your review that ||there was a lot of almost similar gotcha moments|| which i 100% agree on. i personally think because of that, if id have read this first i might have enjoyed this more than needless street, purely because ||as soon as things started falling into place i was just comparing it to needless street nd also just expecting there to be big twists, so i wasnt as excited or shocked as i was before.|| emphasis on that i might have enjoyed this more, because theres definitely more in this book that put me off than there were in needless street. all in all an interesting read, though defo not a fave! i still enjoyed it though nd am looking forward to starting #1257471240759808012
sage sentinel
