Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka

215 reviews

maikepdf's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Emotional abuse, Death, Misogyny, Animal death, Alcoholism, Addiction, Animal cruelty, and Murder

Moderate: Abandonment, Addiction, Child abuse, Death of parent, Drug use, Sexual violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexism, Death, Mental illness, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Drug abuse, Grief, Rape, Violence, Stalking, Alcoholism, and Emotional abuse

haileymundell's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Animal death, Murder, and Animal cruelty

agnela's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Stalking, Medical content, Violence, Death, Toxic relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Murder, Sexual content, Alcohol, Addiction, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Abandonment, Blood, and Grief

madelinedalton's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

I feel a bit lukewarm toward this book, not only because I walked away without a super clear takeaway, but also because it failed to captivate me throughout my reading experience. HOWEVER, I respect the fuck out of a book that doesn’t spoon feed its message to the reader and allows each person to draw their own conclusions. There is a lot of substance to chew on here. The story prompted me to engage in critical thinking and journaling after I finished reading, which I really appreciated.

The characters felt like vessels to convey theme. I normally hate this, but I actually found it really effective in this novel. The exception to this, however, was Shawna. There are many really interesting questions that could be posed about her motivations (and how warped Ansel’s perception of their relationship was) is if we just had a bit more information. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Murder, and Death

crodgers90's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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: Murder and Animal death

zoebill96's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Murder, Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Child death, Domestic abuse, Death, Animal death, Confinement, and Sexual content

wholesomeghost's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Violence, Murder, Sexism, and Stalking

Moderate: Alcoholism, Car accident, Addiction, Confinement, Death, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, Cancer, and Emotional abuse

travelswithcharlie's review against another edition

• Loveable characters? No

1.5

While the author proclaims the intention of this book is to give voice to the victims and to dissect the glorification of serial killers (and many reviewers and fans will agree), the book takes a nose dive and does the exact opposite of what the author intended. For one thing, Ansel is a fictionalized version of Ted Bundy but with less victims.

He's attractive enough that one of his victim's family members masturbates to the thought of him.

Because only one victim is really touched upon and the others are just random, forgettable girls, there is no voice to give to them. We just get made up fantasies (only a couple of pages in length) at the end of the book about what their lives could have been like. And the use of the second person point of view for Ansel did not work. Instead, he was humanized and from my understanding,

magically felt love in the last few seconds of his life and therefore, we should sympathize and be upset that he is being executed.

The author also interjects her own commentary on the death penalty. While I am personally against the death penalty, this commentary was odd given the context. There are many other issues I had with the book, but I will leave it at this. 

Trigger warning: There is animal cruelty and animal death.

The horrific descriptions of what he did to animals was more of a focus than anything he did to his victims.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Domestic abuse

butle2em's review against another edition

dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Murder, Violence, Death, Domestic abuse, Confinement, Abandonment, Animal death, Gore, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Vomit

starryeyed13's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Death, and Domestic abuse