Prudence Osgood once had a successful ghost hunting show but one terrible decision destroys her reputation and costs her the love of her childhoodPrudence Osgood once had a successful ghost hunting show but one terrible decision destroys her reputation and costs her the love of her childhood best friend. She hasn’t dealt with the fallout well at all and now heads a paranormal investigation podcast when she’s not too broken and too drunk to do so. She’s basically a hot mess who suffers from horrifying nightmares, chronic pain and chronic heartache and washes it all away with booze and sex with anonymous ladies she picks up while blackout drunk. After her latest binge, she receives a mysterious email that sets a fire under her butt to solve a long lost mystery and brings her back into contact with her old friend Aubrey which brings emotions bubbling back to the surface.
Osgood As Gone is a good read for those who enjoy a very flawed, very human main protagonist and for those looking for more of a strange occult mystery with some shades of horror. The majority of the story reads like an eerie mystery with clues strewn about here and there and connections that I never made because I am terrible at mysteries. The final few chapters morph into more of a surreal and bleak horror story and I loved that! Truth be told, I would’ve liked more of that but that comes down to my personal preferences.
The relationship between Pru and Aubrey is complicated and beautifully done. There’s pain and betrayal and loyalty and love and I felt it was all very well done. There’s also plenty of sarcasm and witty banter which I always enjoy. These characters felt like they knew each other inside and out. I would’ve liked to learn a bit more about Zack because I am nosy but I imagine that’ll happen in future installments of this series. I can’t wait to check out book #2 to see where it leads because it does end on a bit of a cliffhanger. ...more
I requested this title from Netgalley thinking it was a horror novel because it was in the horror category. I must be more careful about hitting thatI requested this title from Netgalley thinking it was a horror novel because it was in the horror category. I must be more careful about hitting that request button without doing a little research first.
This book is a comedy about a demon gone rogue because his boss Satan is an unappreciative pain in the bum. Satan sends all of his bounty hunters out to drag the demon’s sorry butt back to Hell. But this is not a horror novel. At least not the first 25%. It is written in the sarcastic spirit of Christopher Moore and Clive Barker’s Mister B. Gone which is a book that did not get along with me and I normally adore Barker so you can see how this going to go, can’t you?
Not well, if you were wondering.
I gave up on this book at the 25% mark not because it wasn’t the horror novel I was expecting (so don’t rag on me about that) but because the characters were all loathsome unlikable creatures and I wasn’t in any kind of mood to deal with them. I am also very particular about my humor. This was vaguely amusing but wasn’t making me laugh or snicker or any of those things it should’ve been doing. It was mostly frustrating me because it is written in the “tell don’t show” mode, the plot was extremely disjointed, the ARC had all kinds of pesky formatting errors and it was not keeping my attention no matter how hard I tried. I think a good pass through an editor could easily fix those things but as is, I couldn’t find the will to continue.
Thank you Netgalley for sending me the ARC. I wish it could’ve been a five star read for me but you can’t win them all. I'm sure there are many out here that will dig the humor but unfortunately I'm not one of them....more