Random Reads discussion

Woo hoo! We made it to the end! What did everyone think?

Finished! Wow. That was a trip. We knew it wasn't going to end well for a number of people, but the end still shocked me. I'm interested to hear what people thought about Keseberg. While he was definitely a bad guy, was he also the hero?

"Maybe it takes one demon to keep the others away. Lucifer had been an angel first."

I hate to admit, I didn't really enjoy this one. There were soooo many characters, I didn't really get attached to anyone and really didn't care if they all got picked off. I'm evil, I know...

I've been to the Donner museum (when I was a kid), read a non-fiction about the Donner party before, and love anything with the Oregon Trail in it, so I'm not sure what went wrong for me with this book. Oh well, on to the next read :)

I agree with you Brianna. Too many characters, and way too slow to start. By the time we got to the “scary” part I didn’t care much anymore. The horror part was like a dumbed down version of The Troop almost for me. I’m super excited for our read coming up in December!

I think this had some great atmosphere, and I liked the horror elements once it actually got there, but the pacing was a bit slow for me. I was also a little bit confused by the ending. In the prologue we are told that Keseberg (I think that was his name LOL) was the sole survivor, but then in the epilogue Reed shows up and finds his daughters at the cabin but they’re barely alive. Soooo did Keseberg kill Reed and his family before the next crew of searchers went out looking (the crew from the prologue)? Did the second search party ever even find Keseberg? I don’t know why I’m so confused lol. What do you guys think happened? Besides that I thought it wasn’t a bad book. I liked the horror elements, but it was a bit slow. With that being said, thank you all for reading with us! I hope you had fun. I’m excited for December’s pick!! We’ll be announcing it soon :)

The last 50 pages or so were a trip! But agree with most others here, the pacing was a bit too slow for the most part. And I didn't love most of the characters. But I did enjoy it overall, and it was a good Halloween season read.

I just cannot I understand why most of the characters had to be almost totally immoral. It felt like the sexual morals were almost to blame for the stuff happening. Why did they have to have morally crappy backgrounds? This underlying theme just made it less enjoyable for me

I enjoyed most of this book, it kept me in suspense. As much as I wanted to know what happened to the characters, I was actually more of a fan of the beginning of the book than the end. The last few chapters were slightly confusing and I would have to go back to remember what character was who. The end just seemed abrupt and was unexpected, but slightly confusing given the information your given at the beginning of the book.

Considering I went in the book with such a negative thought on it being that I had done so much research on the Donner Party, I wasn't sure what to expect with her ending being there wasn't much time left. I really wasn't sure to expect with the whole book. It turned out to be not that bad of a book. It kept me on my toes. Glad that Keseberg turned out to be a "good guy" and not the jerk he was in the book. The ending is odd, it just ends... I know there are survivors from the real story, but I don't recall her stating that info. Making you wondering if the rest survived or did Keseberg eat them off one by one. Still debating on a 3 or 4 star, because of her ending. I'll know by the end of the day.

Vicky wrote: "I think this had some great atmosphere, and I liked the horror elements once it actually got there, but the pacing was a bit slow for me. I was also a little bit confused by the ending. In the prol..."

I agree! I thought the same about the survivors at the end. It seemed very misleading at the beginning. But then I was glad that it wasn't just Keseburg.

I think I'm going to go with 3.5 stars for this one. I'm not mad about it.

The subject matter was interesting enough to keep me engaged. By the end I had mostly figured out who people were, but it took me almost the whole book to figure out who belonged to which family and who was just a cattle hand/driver and how they were connected.

I did like that we got to learn more about their characters (fictionalized, I know) - how Tamsen was half a witch and Reed was a closeted gay man, etc. I sort of liked how they each had a secret past. I would have liked to see more of that element with it then coming together at the end that they were really all more connected than they thought somehow. (This is why I don't write novels, only read them!)

I felt the emotion of the parents the most. Think of being out there in that wasteland and trying to figure out how to make sure your children survived. Shudder.

In the end, it was just missing a little punch on the horror part and the cast of characters was pretty complicated. But, I did enjoy the overall idea of giving the historical happening a paranormal feel.

Also, I did minimum of research on the subject was pretty shocked to read that the rescue efforts carried almost as much peril as did the original journey! There was one photo that showed how high the snow drifts were, in particular, that just made my jaw drop!

Wow, I couldn’t put this down. I’ve known about and have seen movies about the Donner Party but this was really a trip. I guess having a home for 20 years near by and having the immigrant trail run through my property really brought this to a new level. A definite 5 star for me. Creepy!

This book was my first DNF of 2020. I think the story was ok but the horror wasn’t for me. I’m glad I tried something outside my comfort zone.