Link to book – The Cult on Fog Island by Mariette Lindstein.
Rating – 3 out of 5 stars.
I’m really on the fence about my overall feelings towards this book because there were several aspects that I really enjoyed and then others just completely ruined it for me, but HEY that’s what review writing is for!
To start with, and I have to get this off my chest… I hated Sofia. She’s our main character and honestly I could not have disliked her more if I tried, she just really wound me up the wrong way and I found her to be a difficult character to enjoy. I’m not sure if it was made worse by the fact the book was written in third person, perhaps she would have been more likable if we were able to see the story from her perspective.
HOWEVER, the rest of the characters absolutely SMASHED it. They brought the entire book to life with their personalities and traits just weaving through the pages. They really sold the story to me.
Moving on though to the writing, I did enjoy the writing and the style of it, there were just a couple of things that niggled me… Namely the time jumps mid chapter, we would be part way through a page and we would just skip forward 3 weeks?! Without any break in the page either, I just felt the time jumps could have been better executed.
I did LOVE how the author managed to make the entire story so atmospheric though. Of course helped by the idea of a foggy island but they ensured that we had the scene set perfectly, a tense and eerie atmosphere created when the fog came and it made me feel as though I was caught up in it too. The same with the intrigue, the author built this story that reached it’s crescendo at just the right point, whilst also leaving breadcrumbs throughout the earlier story to keep us on edge.
The plot is possibly the biggest area that I’m split on… The story was really good and I love anything to do with cults so this was a real selling point for me. However, I did find that there were a couple of aspects that were bigged up (for want of a better phrase) that never really came to fruition throughout the story and it made me wonder why they were included at all.
On the whole though I did enjoy this book! The idea of the cult on an eerie, foggy island really intrigued me and I’m glad I took the time to read this one.
Until next time, Em xxx
What Em's Reading 