Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

25 reviews

keepingitread's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced

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

3.5

The only thing I went into this book knowing was that it had to do with portal worlds. With that being said I had no clue want to expect. This first book gives you most of the world building/background knowledge you will need for the series and introduces you to some of the character you will follow in the other books. I enjoyed the book in finished it in about 3-4 reading sessions. I was unsure and reluctant starting the book as it is on the shorter side and was not sure how much could actually be done in 170 pages. However, I was pleasantly surprised and am interested enough to want to continue to learn about this world.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Moderate: Gore, Grief, and Blood

Minor: Animal cruelty and Eating disorder

xosirenox's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Eating disorder

Minor: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Deadnaming, Kidnapping, Transphobia, Animal death, and Medical content

vivivi's review

adventurous dark lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

Omg. Beautifully dark but at the same time full of hope. It's one of those stories that explores what happens when a child returns to our ordinary world after experiencing a magical one. 

It's not "and they lived happily ever after," that's for sure. 

I had fun reading this. I'm fascinated by the ways the book categorizes the different types of worlds, like into High Nonsense or High Logic worlds. The bits and pieces of the worlds that the characters talk about sound familiar yet aren't. I could absolutely see that they would be in good company amongst the doorways-to-another-world-type stories that we grew up reading. 

This is a mystery novel with the backdrop of a boarding school for teens who have, for one reason or another, been separated from the magical world that they discovered as children. And underlying it all is a wonderful message of being in charge of your own person. 

There's a bit of gore, but nothing more than what you might find in the darker fairy tale stories. 

The ending... I'm not sure if I should be happy for Nancy, but I don't know enough about her medical world to judge lol.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Body horror, and Death

Moderate: Transphobia

Minor: Animal cruelty and Bullying

meleigh's review

2.75

This was a great concept but the ending fell flat, and the gore was a bit much for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Body horror, Violence, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Torture

Minor: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Eating disorder, Transphobia, and Deadnaming

kerrygetsliterary's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Death, Gore, Murder, and Transphobia

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Vomit, Grief, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Deadnaming

readingthief's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Gore, Death, Bullying, Violence, Transphobia, Torture, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Medical content, Animal cruelty, and Deadnaming

lola77's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Whimsical in a twisted kind of way. I am intrigued and looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Deadnaming, Gore, Transphobia, Bullying, Mental illness, and Sexism

Moderate: Animal cruelty

maybephasing's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, Death, and Body horror

Moderate: Transphobia, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

Minor: Abandonment

anastasia_raf's review

challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.0

I truly liked this book! I found it fascinating to say the least. That book is what an original idea is, and I believe the execution of that idea was excellent.

It makes me wonder if it is a metaphorical way of presenting children scarred from familial expectations and traumatized by a parent's ambitions and ideas of a daughter, a son, a child.

Or if it bears the hope that imagination can be salvation to a child and to those prisoned in societal views and ways.

And still this book felt so magical, so surreal and yet so heavily rooted in reality.

I have so many thoughts about this book and so little to say. I decided that I'm going to let the book show you everything.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Transphobia, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Acephobia/Arophobia, Gore, Death, Grief, Deadnaming, Child death, Child abuse, Body horror, and Blood

Moderate: Animal death, Emotional abuse, Vomit, Violence, Animal cruelty, and Domestic abuse

pastelkerstin's review

adventurous dark mysterious

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I feel like this story suffers from its short length, especially once shit gets serious and it seems like everyone is moving on way too fast.

Also, when this came out it was on every ace rep recommendation list. And I get it: The main character is ace and it's mentioned explicitly and this is (was?) a popular book.
But the ace rep in this seems contradictory at times? I don't really know what to make of it. One moment Nancy says it's important to draw a distinction between asexual and aromantic and that she has had boyfriends and has romantic feelings. But then in another scene she says she doesn't want to date anyone. The thing is, it's not like Nancy's experience couldn't be a real person's experience. Attraction is complex and confusing. To me, Nancy seems to be somewhere on the aromantic spectrum, but the narrative doesn't confirm that. It just feels underexplored and odd to me (as an asexual aro-spec person).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Murder, Animal cruelty, Gore, Animal death, Cursing, Death, Deadnaming, Child death, and Violence

Moderate: Eating disorder, Terminal illness, Grief, and Kidnapping

Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia

Eye trauma