★★★★
I’m not gonna go too in depth about this one, frankly because I’d be too lost to go through the whole plot with you guys. Overall, I enjoyed this book. But I found myself quite disillusioned with the ending.
The premise is we have this guy named Aiden Bishop who has voluntarily entered this place, Blackheath, where he has to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle. He has a week to solve the murder, and every day he wakes up in a new host’s body (but he’s reliving the same day from different perspectives). 8 days and 8 hosts. But he’s not the only one participating, and only one person can get out of Blackheath. If he fails to find the murderer, the loop will repeat endlessly.
I really enjoyed reading this. It was entertaining and suspenseful. But the ending fell short of my expectations. I got kinda mad when they revealed that it was a prison the whole time. How boring and unoriginal! The author really couldn’t come up with anything else?
Also, why was the Plague Doctor becoming increasingly humanized? Like, he was scary when he was all mysterious and shit. But he’s just some old guy working in a prison playing dress up. And he was a “good guy” the whole time, trying to help Aiden because he’s a “good person”.
Fine, the reveal about Anna kinda got me. But the ending was sooooo “power of friendship”. You’re telling me he just decided to forgive her and move on. I would’ve liked it more if he had betrayed her or something.
And the fact that it was the brother who killed Evelyn. I knew it, tbh. I remember telling my friend about the book while I was reading, and I said it was probably someone unlikely, like the brother. And I was right. So that didn’t really shock me.
A plot twist I did enjoy was the whole Daniel thing. Things weren’t adding up when I was counting all the hosts he had/will have, and I was really confused. Until it was revealed that Daniel wasn’t one of Aiden’s hosts but his own player. I liked Daniel tbh, he was very cunning. He was what I wished Aiden would’ve been. But Aiden did get smarter as the days went on, so there’s that.
Most of the time, I was a bit confused about the timeframe in which things were happening. I don’t know how Anna did it. Some parts of the plot were a bit unrealistic, and I felt like Aiden had some plot armor. Why is everyone just trying to help Aiden? Very main character energy. And I know he IS the main character but still.
To me, the ending wasn’t done well at all. I was super disappointed. However, I really enjoyed the bulk of the plot before the end. And I think that outweighs whatever I think about the ending. So, overall, I enjoyed it and would recommend the Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.
