Books in the Freezer discussion

What do you think of the story at this point?
How is Stephanie as a protagonist? Thoughts?

I was prepared to defend this book against those charging "too slow", perhaps discuss how important the character development was. But I am now officially on the "needs more editing" team. So much repetition, we would still know Knacker is an asshole with maybe 3 or 4 less scenes of him being an asshole.

One criticism I will defend the book against is the usual "why didn't she leave" one. I thought Stephanie and her complete lack of options, combined with her naiveté, made her "just a few more nights" rationalizations believable.

To me it started off okay but now it seems a bit slow. I'm still curious on what's going to happen to Stephanie. As for Stephanie, I'm honestly not really liking her as a character there are times I want to yell at her to leave the house but then again she doesn't have much choice to leave since she's on her own and no place to go. Hopefully her character development gets better.

So I’m not digging this so far. No one is likable and what annoys me the most is constantly using phonetics to emphasize the accent. Hoping it picks up.

Baker wrote: "So I’m not digging this so far. No one is likable and what annoys me the most is constantly using phonetics to emphasize the accent. Hoping it picks up."

I listened to it on audio, and I was glad I did when I took a look at the text; phonetic accents drive me batty as well. It does get a lot better, but it takes awhile. If you're thinking of giving up, I recommend some serious skimming until you're well into chapter 6. And you can pretty much skip over anything Knacker says, we really don't need 50 redundant episodes to show he's an asshole, I got it after the first two encounters.

I'm curious about what is happening and I want to know more about the house and what's going on with it.
At the same time, the first three days seem to be really similar so far. I feel like a lot of time is spent with Stephanie trying to get out of the place which I understand is something she should be doing, but I also feel like it's a little pointless because there are more days left in the book so surely she's not actually going to find somewhere else to stay. I feel bad for Stephanie but I also don't like that she felt like she could just rely on Ryan to help her out if she needed it. I think we're supposed to believe that her going back to her home town is the worst thing but it doesn't really feel that way to me when things with Knacker aren't great and we can actually see that happening.
At this point, I want to know what happens so I'll keep reading but I hope things get interesting soon.

I didn’t get far but I’m going to be DNFing. I was unimpressed and annoyed by the first chapter, and since I really didn’t like the other Nevill I’ve read, I don’t feel like continuing if I’m not hooked by the beginning. Hope everyone else enjoys it, though!

Sadly, I'm new to the group and the book club...but I'm pretty sure that I'll be DNFing this one. I've got the audiobook and I just don't think I can take 16 more hours. So far the pacing is very slow and the author is giving way more detail than I need. I feel bad for the main character, but not enough to keep listening.

I'm also a newbie to the group and just scanning the comments here and in the other weekly update chats I think I'll just skip this one and jump in for July's book lol

Yes, it’s a little on the slow side, but I think I’m going to stick it out. I’m really curious about the fact that we don’t see Stephanie have dialogue with people other than Knacker and Fergal, save one interaction with Ryan. I’m wondering if she’s already dead and in some sort of purgatory 👻