review 1: Oodles of violence, tons of gougings, beheadings, mutilations, boiled hearts, burnings, eviscerations. Lobotomies, necrophilia, brain removals, child murders. Hardly any character comes through this without Tom and Jerry levels of violence inflicted on them. I didn't find this shocking or gripping, just a bit dull. The characters didn't come into focus and the apocalyptic setting – in which criminals were turned into lobotomised, slaves with their jaws removed – was not convincingly developed, with so much of the narrative given over to gougings, beheadings… review 2: I'm left slightly confused by the ending, possibly because I listened to it on audible rather than read it, & I don't care enough to go back and listen to the last couple of hours again. I n... moreormally love Stuart MacBride books, but this was a bit too gruesome even for me. It seemed pointlessly gruesome in parts. I did actually like most of the book, & liked Will and Jo as characters, and if there is a sequel I will read it (rather than listen to it), but I just didn't love it as much as I'd hoped to. less
