Nice House on the Lake Vol. 2

marksutherland reviewed Nice House on the Lake Vol. 2 by James Tynion IV (The Nice House on the Lake, #2)

Review of 'Nice House on the Lake Tome 2' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The end of the beginning of the end. Walter plays his carnival mirror Christ resurrection card and we get some insight into how the cast ends up in their flash forward monologue scenarios. It's been about a year since I read vol 1 so it took a while to remember where it had left off, which didn't mean nicely with the memory (un-)wiping trope. This is definitely feeling more and more like Lost as it goes on and I'm not sure I care enough about these characters and how they interact to overlook the melodramatic twists and turns. Still the art captures the mood well so I'll grant it another volume to see if it finds its feet again.

Ricardo reviewed Nice House on the Lake Vol. 2 by James Tynion IV (The Nice House on the Lake, #2)

Control

5 stars

The main conflict in this second volume was how to maintain the peace in the house. We had a soft reset in volume 2 which made for a confusing but interesting setup. By the end we are aware that there are controls for everything, including Walter. The team decides the best way to move forward is to kill Walter and try to survive without him. Only to learn that it was all a ruse. There's also the revelation that this is not the end and there are more nice houses out there. We sometimes believe we are in control when we actually don't even know what is going on.

popcar2 reviewed Nice House on the Lake Vol. 2 by James Tynion IV (The Nice House on the Lake, #2)

Review of 'Nice House on the Lake Vol. 2' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

Well, that was a lot of nothing. I expected that the story would pick up after the first volume, but instead we get ~170 pages of nothing really happening until the last 20 pages. Even worse than the boring story, we get a cliffhanger ending with sequel bait on what was supposed to be a two volume limited series. sigh...

There's a lot that's wrong with the story other than the atrocious pacing. It mostly boils down to all the characters ranging from very boring to infuriatingly boring. There isn't a single character that I can remember or root for. They're all boring college bros that spend most of their dialogue talking about their relationships and their college days instead of the real story happening now. Each chapter starts with some form of "I really liked Walter... But he's evil now... And I'm very sad...", which is kind of hilarious …

Well, that was a lot of nothing. I expected that the story would pick up after the first volume, but instead we get ~170 pages of nothing really happening until the last 20 pages. Even worse than the boring story, we get a cliffhanger ending with sequel bait on what was supposed to be a two volume limited series. sigh...

There's a lot that's wrong with the story other than the atrocious pacing. It mostly boils down to all the characters ranging from very boring to infuriatingly boring. There isn't a single character that I can remember or root for. They're all boring college bros that spend most of their dialogue talking about their relationships and their college days instead of the real story happening now. Each chapter starts with some form of "I really liked Walter... But he's evil now... And I'm very sad...", which is kind of hilarious considering I have no idea who's talking and it doesn't really matter because every character is a cardboard box that all act the same.

The other problem with volume 2 is that it employs the worst trope in all of story-telling: characters getting amnesia and forgetting important things that happened so you can watch them spend the rest of the story going in a circle and try to remember everything again. Nothing. Is. Happening.

The only reason it's not a 1 star is because I still really like the concept of the series. The execution though, sucks. The ending is lame and I felt nothing when things happened to certain characters. It's clear James Tynion just had no idea how to continue the series after the concept stage.