Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

131 reviews

kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-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

4.5

This was so good, I couldn’t put it down. There were so many things that happened that I did not expect in the least. It was a wild ride, especially the last 100 pages or so. This book goes to show that you never know the lengths someone will go to protect their own interests and cover up their own lies and deceit.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Confinement, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Outing, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

thenageler's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Loveable characters? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction

Moderate: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infertility, Violence, Kidnapping, and Murder

annahamburger's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug use, Mental illness, Violence, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Sexual harassment, and Classism

Minor: Confinement, Cursing, Fatphobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Sexual content, Transphobia, Blood, Dementia, Religious bigotry, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Dysphoria

izypup's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Cursing, Infertility, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Transphobia, Violence, Religious bigotry, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Dysphoria

molthetroll's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Murder

Moderate: Racism and Xenophobia

Minor: Infertility

scarlett_f's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Infertility, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

lexkazokas's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Violence, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Body horror and Blood

sarah_j90's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I absolutely loved this book!! It's about a recovering addict Mallory who goes to work as a live in nanny for a little boy called teddy. Teddy loves to drawer but then his pictures start to take abit of a weird turn and Mallory starts suspecting it's not actually teddy drawing them after all. Add to this an 'imaginary friend' called Anya that tells teddy what to drawer and sleeps under his bed singing strange songs, a cottage that is still the centre of ghost stories from an incident that happened years and years ago and a very eccentric next door neighbour who claims to speak to spirits but only whilst high and this book is just incredible. It's got a nice little romance that runs through it and the character development is so good, and then the twist at the end ... No way I saw that coming!!! Plus the really great thing about it is the pictures are shown throughout the book so you don't need to imagine what they would look like you can witness them as the characters do. This is a real contender for my book of the year!!! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infertility, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Child death

its_erin's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.25

The scariest things in this book are the main character's decisions. 

I picked this up hoping for a chilling read, something unsettling. While this did not hit the mark for me, it may for others. 

It's a slow build. And by slow I mean that halfway in I still struggled to stay invested and wanted to put it down. I feel that this disinterest comes down to a few factors: 

1) I didn't find the main character compelling or, at times, likeable. She could be grating, and often times her thoughts and actions were scarier than any of the pictures. 

2) The build to a climax was nonexistent for most of the book. It was hard to understand what was happening, where the plot was leading, or what was trying to be accomplished. And this wasn't in the fun "keep ya guessing" way, it was just in the poorly written way. 

3) The writing style wasn't my favorite. Writing in first-person was a stylistic choice that I don't think paid off, and choosing to do "reveals" about the main character's background 75% of the way in was a disservice to the character. 

I will say that the most compelling character was Caroline - who is not the main character - and that was only at the end. Otherwise, it's hard to say if this is a ghost story, a treatise on addiction, or a grimm's fairytale about liberals gone bad.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Violence, Kidnapping, and Murder

Moderate: Drug abuse, Toxic relationship, and Xenophobia

aas's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Infertility, Infidelity, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail