Book Review | The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess

After surviving a home invasion, Sydney wakes up in a hospital and the police inform her that she brutally killed the burglar. However, she has not memory doing that. She’s not sure what to believe anymore. When she returns home, she begins questioning her own memories and threatens to lapse back into her old drug habits as she searches for the truth.

Buckle up because The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess by Andy Marino is one weird ride (even by my standards).

This is a trippy, disorienting read that blends together different timelines and reality with nightmarish visions. I suppose this is a deliberate choice to reflect Sydney’s own disjointed mental state, but it also makes for a sometimes confusing read.

One of my biggest issues with the novel though was the prose itself. I’m fine with lyrical writing, but some of the purple prose and word choices in this book are … bizarre and I don’t quite feel like the first person narrator's voice matches the main character.

Overall, this is a creative yet convoluted twist on a possession story with some fantastically hallucinogenic passages.

Thank you, NetGalley and Redhook, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Details:

Publication Date : September 28, 2021

Publisher : Redhook

ISBN : 0316629480

Pages : 352

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