Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

13 reviews

artis_meretrix's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Beautiful imagery of nature. Horrifying exploration of pressured consent. Reminded me of the quote “when you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives.” 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Child death, Body horror, Physical abuse, Sexism, Animal death, Torture, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Cultural appropriation, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Racism, Classism, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

Minor: Vomit

esme_may's review against another edition

dark reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Violence, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Blood, and Misogyny

Moderate: Animal death, Classism, Death, Animal cruelty, Cursing, Racism, Racial slurs, and Xenophobia

Minor: Alcohol, Murder, Pedophilia, and Religious bigotry

clareehebert's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty

Moderate: Child abuse and Misogyny

bossybookworm345's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Physical abuse, Child abuse, and Sexism

Moderate: Gaslighting, Death, Emotional abuse, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Vomit

allisonmeyette's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I think this is a book I will have to read again and again. Stunning writing, and over too quickly. The pace of the book is very slow up until the last 15-20 pages. It's one of those books where if you read it too quickly and don't digest it as you go, you don't get everything out of it (which is what I'm afraid I did). It's also quite creepy while really immersing you in the world that the Professor is trying to create. Please see content warnings too, as there are a LOT of possibly triggering themes in the book and may not be for everyone. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Animal cruelty, Violence, Bullying, Animal death, and Child abuse

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Domestic abuse, Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Misogyny, Murder, and Physical abuse

Minor: Cancer, War, Classism, and Vomit

readersreadingnook's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cursing, Emotional abuse, and Adult/minor relationship

wellredphd's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Animal cruelty, and Domestic abuse

prey4thefemale's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

being a teenage girl sucks :(

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Animal death, and Domestic abuse

annabookpaiges's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Animal death, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, Violence, and Gaslighting

neni's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 Interesting narrative style. The continuous (almost stream of consciousness) narration kinda reminded me of José Saramago’s writing style, because it doesn’t use any paragraph breaks or punctuation other than commas and periods. Although it did make my understanding of the story sometimes a little more complicated (especially in the dialogue bits, where I had trouble figuring out who exactly was talking), I think it was a great choice for this type of story. The author did an amazing job in completely immersing the reader in the story, and the non stop narration as well as the fact we were in the main character’s head the whole time (which came with the full set of her trauma induced biases) served to create a tense, unsettling, borderline claustrophobic feeling that fit the themes and the mood of the story perfectly. That said, this isn’t the type of fun, engaging read to let go for a while, it comes with a load of trigger warnings and the whole thing is about dark and disturbing themes. 

I can’t say I “enjoyed” this because it was honestly kind of disturbing, but it was definitely an interesting reading experience and the author is clearly very talented. I simply cannot give more than 4 stars to something that so disturbed me, but that’s not a fault of the book itself, just a personal preference/subjective reading experience thing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Sexism, Domestic abuse, and Misogyny

Moderate: Body shaming and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Abandonment