72 Hours/YMMV
< 72 Hours
- Invincible Villain: Damien, at least in the middle third of the story. He’s more interesting before and after.
- Character Derailment: A number of reviewers criticised the epilogue for doing this to Ashley, saying her actions were too brutal for her.
- Anthony Marston himself has regretted writing that epilogue, so it seems those critics are right.
- Complete Monster: Joel.
- Harsher in Hindsight: Bo mentions his desire to kill Michael Jackson.
- Hype Aversion: Let's face it, if it would be a 1300 page print book and has 350 reviews on Fan Fiction.net, it will suffer from this to some extent. See the fanfiction recommendations page for Battle Royale for a few examples.
- Magnificent Bastard: Isaac Freemantle, in the sequel.
- Nausea Fuel: Due to the level of violence, particularly towards the end, several of the deaths qualify. The epilogue somehow manages to combine this trope with Gory Discretion Shot, which says a lot for the Gorn in that scene.
- Nightmare Fuel: Damien, Good Lord. When he first starts out, it's made pretty obvious that he has serious mental health issues, with one character commenting he's like one of Columbine Gunmen. He starts the whole thing off playing the role of Kazuo, but by the end, he's progressed to some strange, unholy combination of Heath Ledger's Joker, Carrie, and Gollum.
- Benny, just Benny. If you had nightmares about Donnie Darko’s Frank, then do not read the sections involving this depraved rabbit. You have been warned. This is eventually discussed by Ashley and Carter.
- Purity Sue: Katherine, with Dora coming dangerously close.
- Squick: You seriously need an iron constitution to be able to endure the last 5 chapters, and when reading the last you should be as far away from food and as close to a latrine as humanly possible. And the last chapters are merely the worst in a long line of horrific incidents.
- Too Cool to Live: Jacob. Could well apply to some of the others as well, depending on personal preference.
- Unfortunate Implications: Naomi’s hatred of the guy she wants, Rudy, being with Lindsay is essentially “Lindsay is white, therefore she’s not good enough for him."
- Villain Decay: Joel gradually shifts from a competent - if monstrous - villain to a dumb brute.
- Villain Sue: Katie, who has supernatural levels of physical capability. Amusingly, this is unintentionally lampshaded by Joel, who questions how the hell she can be so fast and so strong.