Reprieve: A Novel
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Reprieve: A Novel Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

James Han Mattson (Author), JD Jackson (Narrator), HarperAudio (Publisher)
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 399 ratings
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"Like Whitehead’s The Intuitionist, Alyssa Cole’s When No One Is Watching or Zakiya Dalila Harris’ The Other Black Girl, Reprieve straddles genres in the best possible way.... Sure to spark conversation and debate at book clubs across the land." (Los Angeles Times)

“An eventual American classic that is unrelenting in its beauty and incisive cultural critique.” (Kiese Laymon)

Recommended by New York Times Los Angeles Times NPR Today EsquireO Quarterly Boston GlobeChicago TribuneHarper’s Bazaar Shondaland Thrillist The Millions Crimereads XTRA Tor Literary Hub and more!

A chilling and blisteringly relevant literary novel of social horror centered around a brutal killing that takes place in a full-contact haunted escape room - a provocative exploration of capitalism, hate politics, racial fetishism, and our obsession with fear as entertainment.

On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps, and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, “reprieve,” they’ll win a substantial cash prize - a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house’s long history. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants.

Those who were present on that fateful night lend their points of view: Kendra Brown, a teenager who’s been uprooted from her childhood home after the sudden loss of her father; Leonard Grandton, a desperate and impressionable hotel manager caught in a series of toxic entanglements; and Jaidee Charoensuk, a gay international student who came to the United States in a besotted search for his former English teacher. As each character’s journey unfurls and overlaps, deceit and misunderstandings fueled by obsession and prejudice are revealed, forcing all to reckon with the ways in which their beliefs and actions contributed to a horrifying catastrophe.

An astonishingly soulful exploration of complicity and masquerade, Reprieve combines the psychological tension of classic horror with searing social criticism to present an unsettling portrait of this tangled American life.

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  1. Listening Length
    12 hours and 16 minutes
  2. Author
    James Han Mattson
  3. Narrator
    JD Jackson
  4. Audible release date
    October 5, 2021
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    HarperAudio
  7. ASIN
    B08TPXNJLH
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 12 hours and 16 minutes
Author James Han Mattson
Narrator JD Jackson
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date October 05, 2021
Publisher HarperAudio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B08TPXNJLH
Best Sellers Rank #157,716 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#730 in LGBTQ+ Literary Fiction (Books)
#865 in Psychological Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)
#3,360 in Psychological Thrillers (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
399 global ratings
One of the Best Novels of 2021
5 Stars
One of the Best Novels of 2021
I was left stunned and sobered by the brilliant new novel REPRIEVE by James Han Mattson. What begins as the story of a murder taking place at a full-contact haunt in 1997 Lincoln, Nebraska, quickly becomes so, so much more, a riveting, unvarnished exploration of racism, entitlement, toxic masculinity, fetishization, loneliness, trauma, and the often lifelong struggle to make amends for one’s mistakes. This is easily one of the best books of 2021. A must-read.
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Top reviews from the United States

Hailey Gross
5.0 out of 5 stars Came Unexpectedly signed!!
Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2022
Verified Purchase
I was very happy to see that when I ordered this book that it was signed. But the book itself is so good as well.
One person found this helpful
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Rosa Melendez
4.0 out of 5 stars Will stick with me for a long time
Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2023
Verified Purchase
Full Contact Haunted House, Courtroom mystery drama, throwback movie and book references, morally grey characters, social commentary, masterful writing... I didn't know what to expect going into this, but this book is going to stay with me for a while.

I wouldn't call this book a "horror" necessarily, and so I can understand why some people might not like it. Perhaps they went in expecting a fast pace thriller horror book. This book is slow and thoughtful, a tense psychological character study. Yes, there are some horror-filled scenes in the haunted house, but the majority of the book is detailing each character's life leading up to the event and showing how they all intertwined.

There are multiple timelines - before Quigley house, the court case after Quigley house, and the present day. There are also multiple POVs. That being the case, there are a lot of moving parts. You'll have to pay attention, at least I did! I usually don't like multiple timelines and POVs, but Mattson did an amazing job with it, I was hooked on each part of the story, and each character felt fully realized and developed, even the most heinous ones.

The reason I am rating 4 instead of 5 is that the more I think of it, the more I wish I got a bit more from the ending of the story. There are a lot of things I wished we were able to see that we never got to. Also, although I loved the social commentary aspects of the story, there were some scenes where it felt like it was a bit hand fisted, which made the dialogue feel forced and fake.

I'm a fan of Mattson, really looking forward to seeing what he publishes next.
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Awd
3.0 out of 5 stars Just ok
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2021
Verified Purchase
I’d read and heard lots of really good reviews of this book so I ordered it. I thought it was just ok. I evidently didn’t “get it” or something. The main thing I was disappointed in was the quality of the book. The pages were really cheap-hard to turn. I’ve never had a book from book stand, book club or Amazon with pages of such poor quality and it was $23.
One person found this helpful
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Tabatha Shipley
5.0 out of 5 stars If you think real horror is what we do to each other, this is your kind of book.
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2023
What I Didn’t Like:
-Come for the horror and you’ll find the pacing too slow. Is this horrific and thrilling? Yes! But it’s also taking you on a journey. It takes time.
-None of the characters are explored in depth. That is to say you aren’t in anyone’s head and you don’t know anything for certain. That forces the story to maintain a level of mystery and uncertainty some readers might not like.
-The level of gore is medium, I’d say. If you like heavy gore in horror you’ll say it’s not enough. If you don’t like gore the Cells will be too much.

What I Did Like:
-I always enjoy dual timelines, specifically in horror. It’s fascinating to read about seemingly normal people and normal timelines and know something will happen to bring them to this other timeline where something awful happened.
-“…life is the real horror, isn’t it?” That quote from this book totally sums up this message. I agree. Real people are the worst horrors. The things we do to each other are terrifying. This book focuses on that.
-Clashing genres. Contemporary could-be-happening-anywhere story slams into horror in the best way. The lessons are contemporary and real. The terror is real. It’s well done and it will stick in your brain a long time.
-The court transcripts are a good addition. They add to the sense of urgency and drama.
Flawed characters. They’re all battling something, they’re all so terribly realistic and flawed. Some confront it, some get called out for it, some don’t ever realize it. But they’re all so flawed. It’s incredibly realistic.

Who Should Read This One:
If you think real horror is what we do to each other, this is your kind of book. Packed with social commentary and yet terrifying, this one will please readers who like multilayered stories.

My Rating: 5 Stars
I can’t ignore how much my brain will return to thinking about this book and these characters.
One person found this helpful
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Jared
4.0 out of 5 stars This is not a horror novel.
Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2021
Verified Purchase
I don't know what book some of the promo reviewers read, but this is definitely not a "nail-biting horror" novel. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, but it just completely fell apart at the end. The ending made no sense to me and was so disappointing.
I did enjoy the author's writing style and loved some of the descriptions, especially of Thailand.
Would be willing to give the author a second chance with his next book.
8 people found this helpful
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Researcher
2.0 out of 5 stars Instead of outstanding it was just confusing
Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2021
Verified Purchase
I was so concerned that this suspenseful book would end in a gorefest that I took my eye off the plot...I shouldn't have. The end was just confusing and disappointing. I think the author intended to write a horror story with z message. He probably should have chosen one or the other.

The biggest problem is the lack of context (spoiler alert) provided to make race such a significant factor in the ending. Other than the lack of racial diversity how did Nebraska become 1950s Mississippi? Where was the triggering event? Why did we need someone from Thailand to point out American racism? I was disappointed at what I felt to be a switch in focus.
5 people found this helpful
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Stephanie
3.0 out of 5 stars Not a true horror
Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2023
I didn’t think that this was the scary page-turner it was hyped up to be. The ending was just meh- didn’t really make sense. Kind of disappointing.
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Top reviews from other countries

Simon4
4.0 out of 5 stars Crying Out For TV!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 6, 2022
Verified Purchase
This is a cracker of a read: an escape room mystery with a bang up-to-date cast of diverse characters, whose experiences expose white privilege without derailing the plot-driven narrative. Fast, fun, and furious.
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booksy
2.0 out of 5 stars I felt like yelling 'Reprive' myself during this novel
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2022
Verified Purchase
It's ironic that a novel about an escape room experience could have made me feel so utterly like escaping the experience myself. This has to be up there with some of the worst books I've ever read. I don't really know where to start. But, to kick off, the interesting part of this book (a full-contact haunted escape room) was as bland as anything. The book flits between action in the 'Cells' (contestants have to clear five to win) and the backstory of about five characters. The characters themselves are dull with zero character development - and some border on the unlikable. There's some long-winded backstory relating to one guy, Leonard, who falls in love with a woman, splits up with her, then (at the urging of the escape room owner) goes to Thailand, where he falls in love with a sex worker and becomes obsessed by her. It's all so dull and meaningless. It felt like every backstory was being orchestrated to set up how/why the characters ended up in the escape room experience together. But really, I cared so little for any of them and had such little interest that it was just dull. It's clear, at the start, that someone's been killed (there's a trial going on) - but you can't invest in that because you don't know who it is, and the story is drip fed so slowly that I began to lose the will to live. The only reason I gave this two stars is that the writing was okay - nothing special, but sort of readable. However, the plot gets a big fat zero.
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Amazon Customer
1.0 out of 5 stars The worst book I have ever read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 18, 2021
Verified Purchase
This was an ordeal to read, so disjointed,so pointless and with no rationale to the story line. The links between the characters were contrived, the characters themselves did not elicit ant sympathy or empathy from this reader. Why one character goes completely off the rails has such an absurd premise I did not know whether to laugh, cry or just hurl my kindle out of the room. I have deleted from my kindle and have vowed NEVER to purchase anything from this author again.
4 people found this helpful
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